Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: When Shinji lost consciousness within the Dirac Sea, he was taken to a different Japan in a different universe. One where he is a legend of rage, and the only known male of any family with celestial blood with power like those demonstrated by women like Aya or Chidori. When the Mikage family discovers this, Shinji is left with two options: Help Aya and her friends or betray them.
1. Prologue

Creation began on 12-14-15

Creation ended on 12-14-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor

A/N: Again, I'm the only one that thinks these unlikely combinations! You can't stop progress!

As Aya and Toya returned to the Aogiri house, something impossible happened in front of them. A portal appeared…and a boy, perhaps two or three years younger than Aya, dressed in a strange, diving suit, fell to the ground.

"Aaurgh!" The boy groaned, sounding like he had been through Hell.

-x-

"…That's amazing," said Yuuhi, looking down at the boy that Aya and Toya brought back with them. "Who could he be?"

"Someone that seems powerful, that's for sure," said Suzumi, checking the boy's pulse through his left arm as he slept. "But something isn't right. Whatever energies that dwell within him, they're all twisted up, tangled, like he can't focus or something."

"Could he be related to a family with a celestial being?" Aya suggested.

"It's possible," Suzumi expressed. "We won't know until he recovers."

Aya looked at the boy, noticing how his face seemed to remind her of her brother before he was possessed by the Progenitor's soul. He seemed like he had a rough past and was unable to find a peaceful route to his future.

The boy turned his head and slowly opened his eyes, weakly, looking up at Aya. She was unlike any other woman or girl he had seen in his past. But her face, so full of kindness and peace, it was enough to make him forget the trauma of the last thing he could remember.

"Angel," he smiled, and then lost consciousness again.

-x-

It was a miracle that Unit-01 survived the destruction of the Twefth Angel, but the Entry Plug had been found to be empty, deprived of its passenger.

"Where is he?" Misato demanded from Ritsuko, who was unable to come up with any solution for why the Third Child was missing from the plug. "Where is he?!"

To be continued…

A/N: It's a prototype, but I see the potential for a new route in the crossover series with Shinji. What do you think about this?


	2. Choices of Trust

Creation began on 12-15-15

Creation ended on 12-15-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Choices of Trust

Feeling a little like he had the best sleep of his fourteenth year of life, Shinji awoke from his slumber and saw a ceiling that was the same to him as every other ceiling had been in his past: Unfamiliar and alien.

"Another unfamiliar ceiling," he sighed.

"Oh, you're awake now," he heard a female voice say out loud, and a large shadow appeared over him. "How are you feeling?"

He turned his head to face the owner of the voice…and soon wished he hadn't. The person, while sounding sincere and caring, had a face that was that of a ridiculous man pretending to be a woman. And not to mention short.

"Aaaaahh!" He gasped, jumping off the bed and backing up against the nearest wall.

Several footsteps could be heard and a sliding door opened, revealing Toya, Aya, Yuuhi and Suzumi.

"I see you've met Q-Chan," Suzumi spoke up.

"Are you alright?" Aya asked him.

"I…I… Who are you people?" Shinji asked her. "Where am I?"

"My name is Aya Mikage," Aya introduced herself, and then gestured her left hand to Toya. "This is Toya (she then gestured towards Yuuhi) and Yuuhi Aogiri."

"I am Suzumi Aogiri," Suzumi introduced herself to him. "I'm the head of this house."

Shinji bowed his head to them, and then looked at Q-Chan again.

"Q-Chan?" He spoke, and she nodded in the positive. "Nice to meet each of you."

"Your name?" Yuuhi asked him.

"Shinji Ikari," he introduced himself.

"Do you remember anything from before we found you, Shinji?" Aya asked him.

"I was…" Shinji started, but then grabbed his head, feeling an intense headache. "I was…doing something I hated, facing an enemy beyond people."

Aya reached out to touch his head.

FLASH! Shinji looked around him and saw Aya, but she had been stabbed from behind by a man that looked inhuman with rage and obsession. Along with Aya was a woman that had a slight resemblance to her, but her hair was a dark blue tone. FLASH!

"Aaaurgh!" He groaned in a pain-filled rage, and blue fire manifested around him.

Aya gasped and tried to back away, but stopped when she realized something unusual about the flames. It wasn't that they were blue, but that they didn't harm her or damage the floor or wall around the boy.

When the flames dissipated, Shinji had calmed down and dropped his palms onto the floor.

"Are you alright?" He asked Aya.

"I'm fine," she answered him. "Are you alright?"

"I…I saw someone try to kill you," he revealed, and the worst part of the revelation was that he felt it had actually happened to him. "You were stabbed in the back and out the front of your stomach."

Aya could see that something terrified him, but it did something else to him. She wasn't sure what. Slowly approaching him again, she placed her hands on his shoulders.

"It's okay, Shinji," she told him. "I'm fine."

He raised his left arm up and held her right hand. He felt calmed by her presence.

-x-

"…The Ikari family?" Kagami questioned, looking over a folder containing pictures of a young man that he was informed could be of special interest. "And you think that they're descendants of a Tennyo from ancient times?"

In front of him was Aki, or rather the Progenitor, the ancestral patriarch of the Mikage family.

"There was a man and woman from a neighboring tribe that was years before my tribe," he explained. "The man's wife seemed to demonstrate some degree of…temperament."

"Temperament? As in she had a temper that wasn't like other women?"

"She may have been a Tennyo and had descendants with her mortal spouse. This boy, this…Shinji Ikari…may be one of them."

"But he's a boy, Forefather," Kagami reminded. "All of our C-Genomes have been women. What makes you certain that he could have Tennyo blood in him?"

"A strong feeling," the Progenitor answered him, "and if he is, then imagine how invaluable he could be if you had him."

Kagami considered the possibilities, and assured the Progenitor that the boy would be sought out.

"And if Ceres were to find him first?" He asked him.

"We need to make sure he can be swayed to side with us over her and her allies," the Progenitor responded back.

-x-

"How's your head feeling?" Aya asked Shinji, as the day became night and the boy looked at her with a saddened expression.

"Better," he answered her. "Would you believe me if I told you about my life before you found me?"

"After everything I've been through, I'm willing to believe whatever you want to tell me, Shinji."

And so he told her. Everything from his mother dying when he was little to his father summoning him to a fortress city to face giant creatures called Angels. From his complicated relationships with Rei Ayanami to his uneasy relationship with Asuka Langley Soryu. He left nothing unmentioned (this excluded his embarrassing time going to Rei's apartment and that synchronization test that required him to be naked).

Aya could've almost thought he was crazy, but she truly believed him for everything he said. She looked him in his eyes and knew that his past was as real as her family's history was. What she found to be the harshest aspect of his past before they met was the unjustifiable cruelty he got from his father's neglect and exploitation. A boy without so much as a true friend or an actual family that cared was just as devastating as the people she met that were related to the Tennyo being hunted down and exploited.

She hugged him, figuring that he needed one bad.

"If you ever need someone to talk to," she offered him, "or someone to call a friend, you can always talk to me, Shinji."

"Thank you, Ms. Mikage," he praised her.

"Please, call me Aya. All my friends call me do."

"Thank you…Aya."

To be continued…

A/N: And here, we get a taste of Shinji's powers as a descendant of a family related to a celestial being. I feel the next chapter will involve NERV in some way and will show their similarity to how cold the Mikage family is. But I wonder if Shinji should have one other similarity to Aya, and that's having a secondary persona that's a spiritual presence. What do you think?


	3. NERV and Mikage

Creation began on 12-15-15

Creation ended on 12-18-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: NERV and Mikage

MIA. That was what the Third Child's status was summed up as. Missing In Action. His body couldn't be found, and there was no indication (as far as Ritsuko could ascertain) that he had been dissolved and ingested by Unit-01; this was confirmed by the fact that there was no trace of his plugsuit or interface headset, which would've remained in the plug if he had been.

It had been a week since the Twelfth Angel was defeated, but NERV was a pilot short, and the search for an adequate Fourth Child was still in progress. This didn't help Gendo with his scenario, though. As much as he hated to admit it, his scenario required his son towards the very end of it, and now that he was gone, his plans for Instrumentality were thrown off. Even if he still had Rei, Unit-01, Adam and Lilith, he might as well have lost them to the Twelfth Angel, too, as he couldn't get any further to his goal with just them. He could get close…but he'd never reach his goal.

He knew because he had Rei retested with Unit-01 to see if she could pilot it. The Eva wouldn't sync with her at all. It, or more accurately, Yui, had rejected the First Child, and there was no way Gendo would make any attempts to use any other pilot with the purple Eva.

 _Of all the times that pilot had to get lost,_ he thought, choosing to blame Shinji for his absence instead of taking any responsibility for himself or holding Dr. Akagi responsible.

-x-

Reading over the Ikari family's file, Kagami found this Shinji Ikari to be most intriguing, and this was even before the Mikage family made any attempt to locate him and include him to their affairs. So far, what he found out about Shinji was that he was fourteen years old and lived in one of the coastal towns around Japan. Nothing yet on what school he went to or who he spent time with outside his family. The more he studied the kid, the more he wanted to meet with him and find out what he was capable of if he was indeed the descendant of a Tennyo.

 _We really must meet with him,_ he thought, looking down at a picture of Shinji riding a bike on some road by the water.

-x-

In his room, Yuuhi, an hour after he touched Shinji by his hand, pondered if what he told him was even true. They had all only known him for about a week now, and so far, they saw him generate blue flames that didn't burn anything on or around him or others, and he told Aya that he saw her get hurt by someone, and now he told Yuuhi something that seemed impossible.

" _You tried to save a girl,"_ Shinji had told him, having seen what had to be a glimpse of the future. _"You screamed her name. You screamed for someone named Chidori. You tried to save her, but you couldn't…and they killed her."_

 _How can he possibly know any of that?_ Yuuhi thought. _Unless he's psychic, that seems unlikely. And yet…there's something about him that seems unusual._

Meanwhile, in the living room area, Shinji was engaged in a conversation with Suzumi, who was trying to understand how he could see these events before they've yet to happen.

"…This has been going on for about a week since we've met," she stated to him, including his recent string of dreams. "And you're sure you have no idea as to how any of this is so?"

"I swear," he responded, genuinely disturbed and concerned by these abilities he had displayed. "I don't know how or even why. It's like, every time I touch someone or they touch me, I end up seeing these awful things that have yet to transpire. My first was seeing Aya get stabbed in the back, and now I see another girl getting hurt and Yuuhi is unable to save her. And whenever I dream of these events, they're in such detail that they seem too real…and nightmarish."

"And…in your second vision…are you sure you saw a girl named Chidori die?"

He nodded that he was certain; he saw the girl die in Yuuhi's arms.

Suzumi thought for another minute, and considered this possibility to the why itself.

"It must be a form of precognition," she suggested to him.

"What is that?" He asked, confused.

"It's a form of ESP that enables a person to foresee events before they happen. You briefly glimpse into the future. However, your current case may be limited to just touching people."

"But…I touched Q-Chan, and I never see anything that has yet to happen. Same with you when I shook your hand. I saw nothing."

And Suzumi took that into consideration, as well. She theorized that this form of precognition could only be triggered by certain people that may have some sort of involvement with these future events, and it was why Shinji could never see anything involving Q-Chan or herself; it was because they had no involvement with these events. At least not in any way that would involve them.

"…So, basically, I could touch you all I wanted, and I wouldn't see anything…while touching people like Aya or Yuuhi causes me to see events where it seems like they're going to suffer because of other circumstances?" Shinji asked, unsure of her theory. "Why can't this ability just be something like a common cold or a nightmare that I'm trying to awaken from?"

"I'm sure that if you talk about it more, it'll get easier over time," Suzumi offered. "You've only started to manifest these abilities for a week, so you've not had a chance to adjust and cope with them. It's a stretch, but I suggest you talk to Aya about it."

"Aya? Why Aya?"

"You two may be in the same boat, albeit on different floors. Aya is the descendant of a Tennyo known as Ceres, who can take possession of her body at will."

Shinji took the suggestion into consideration, and vacated the room to find Aya.

 _Aya and I on the same boat? Ceres can take possession of Aya? Every time I touch a certain person, I will see events that carry pain in them?_ He thought, stepping out into the garden area…and saw Aya kissing Toya. _Oh…_

Aya, just opening her eyes, saw that Shinji was present, and immediately broke her kiss with Toya, who also noticed the boy.

"Shinji, how are you?" Aya asked him.

"Suzumi suggested that I speak with you about my abilities," he told her, and she suspected that he probably had a case of envy within him. "She thinks we might be on the same boat because you can be possessed by someone named Ceres."

 _That's right, he doesn't know about Ceres,_ Aya thought, and agreed to speak with him about it. "Okay."

Toya saw this as his cue to exit and left the garden.

"About that," Aya started, hoping to explain her relationship with Toya to Shinji, "he's my…"

"It's okay, really," Shinji cut her off, actually wanting her to understand how he felt about her. "I don't…have a crush on you or anything. I…I really just want to be friends, just as you yourself offered. Plus, I'm fourteen. You're older than I am. Such a relationship would be wrong. I mean, not wrong, just… I'm sorry, Aya. If it is okay with you, I would like to put it behind us."

"Yeah, sure," she agreed with him, and they sat by the small pond. "Thank you, Shinji."

-x-

"…This is the prototype of the Dummy Plug," Ritsuko showed Gendo the red Entry Plug. "All of Rei's thought patterns have been programmed into it, but the soul cannot be digitized. In the end, it's just a machine, an artificial construct designed to simulate human thought patterns."

"The Dummy Plug transmits a signal, and the Eva syncs with it," Gendo uttered. "Will this work with Unit-01, though?"

"They're still some feedback errors, but it should."

"It won't matter so long as the Eva moves."

-x-

He could see some resemblance between the two, but Shinji saw something in this woman that he never saw in Aya. In his perception, Aya was a sweet and peaceful person…but this other person, this Ceres… She seemed to be harboring secrets that even Aya wasn't aware of. And she looked more serious than Aya to him, like she knew nothing of happiness (which he was sure he could sympathize).

"Are you the one Aya calls Ceres?" He asked her.

"I am," she answered him; to Shinji, even the woman's voice sounded different. "You have power similar to mine…but we're on different levels. Also, you're not from around here."

"Yes, I've told Aya. Not many people would believe me if I told them. As for our similar abilities, I doubt I'm anywhere near your level."

"To be honest, you're stronger than I am."

That caught Shinji off his guard.

"I've been lied to before, ma'am," he told her. "I'm not good with being lied to, so don't lie to me, please. It just (he raised his left hand up, feeling it tremble under a sense of uneasiness)… Please, don't lie to me."

And somehow, Ceres knew that there was something not right with this boy, like he was there in front of her, but not the only one there.

"It's not a lie," she told him. "There is power far greater than mine asleep within you. I've only met one other person greater than I am…and that was long ago."

His left hand stopped trembling, and he sighed a breath of relief.

"I am sorry," he apologized to her. "Lately…maybe far longer than that…I don't know when…but I get this feeling and…I feel so much… It's like a bad feeling."

"Rage?" Ceres questioned.

"Is that the word?"

"Rage is an extension of fear, a route to a darkness that there is usually no turning away from."

"I don't know when I started to feel so much rage, but it feels like a body of fog that I can't get out of."

"This person I once knew was exactly the same…only she couldn't escape this feeling of rage."

"What caused her rage?"

"Her strongest ability…to siphon the negative energies of those around her into herself."

Shinji was confused now. This was mainly because he knew nothing of the word 'siphon'.

"What is that word? What is siphon?" He asked her.

"It's the ability to absorb or take away from something or someone and redirect what is taken elsewhere. I'm sure that you can imagine it, to absorb the negativity of others into yourself, to feel anger…and not knowing why while those around you that were once angry feel better." She told him.

"Actually, I can't imagine that. I can, however, imagine being forced to do things I don't want to do, even by people that are supposed to be the people that care about you, and they give you no easy choice when faced with being held responsible for the deaths of others. It…makes me so angry to be related to someone that's supposed to be responsible for your well-being…and all he cares about is his interests. His interests! Not mine!"

Ceres felt the anger that Shinji had for his father (she didn't even need to ask him about who it was that he was angry with).

"Except I…I don't want to continue feeling this way towards him," he told her. "I'd rather feel nothing for him if he cares so little to nothing for me. He can't even be honest with me. He couldn't be honest with me. He wouldn't."

"Is honesty that important to you?" She asked him.

"If we're not honest to ourselves, how can we be honest to anyone else?" He told her. "There was one thing my teacher told me three years after I was left in his care by my father. He spoke of something called a chakra that was within the throat, how it represented the truth we could speak…but is clouded by the emotional muck that is nothing but lies. The lies we tell to others because we can't bear to admit the truth…and the lies we tell ourselves because we don't want to admit the truth."

"The lies we tell others because we can't bear to admit the truth…and the lies we tell ourselves because we don't want to admit the truth?"

"Dishonesty to others…and dishonesty to ourselves. We lie instead of tell the truth. We don't understand that by keeping secrets, we'll pay a price that is heavy and without a shred of much hope. Secrets always have a cost. They're never for free."

"Do you think I am capable of dishonesty?" Ceres asked him.

"I think you're not being forthcoming with your past in its entirety…nor are you being clear about what your hagoromo looks like."

"So I am dishonest?"

"In a way…yes. Yes, you are dishonest. But that hasn't stopped Aya from trying to help you find your robes and move on. She explained to me, from her point of view, what has been going on for over a year since her sixteenth birthday and what's happened to her brother, who's possessed by the soul of your former spouse, but that's all she knows, all she can understand about what you've told her. I want to help her help you find your robes because I don't want her to suffer."

"You have affection for my descendant?"

"I do, but not like that. She offered me friendship, and that's all I want of her."

"Men will say that…until they long for more."

Shinji gave Ceres a slight frown, as if he had been crossed by her. It was like this woman had a biased belief towards men, similar to Asuka's biased belief that all boys were fools. But Shinji knew that he wasn't attracted to Aya in a romantic way; he knew because he saw her with Toya, she was over two years older than he was, they had only known each other for a week, and Shinji wasn't interested in a romantic relationship with anyone right now. And even if he had been, he would prefer someone that actually wanted to know him and wasn't involved with anyone.

"You can believe what you will, Ceres," he stated, "but whatever affections I have for Aya are that of a friend, and I'll do whatever I can to help her…even if it means I have to tolerate your biased belief that men are only interested in women for selfish reasons."

Now Ceres felt like he had crossed her, but was stating his opinion that he wasn't going to take Aya and possess her like how her former spouse did with her long ago. She couldn't even sense any envious desires in him that wanted Aya for the sake of wanting her.

"So…you will go to extreme lengths…even dangerous, life-threatening ones…because she offered you her friendship?" She asked him.

Shinji stood his ground against the Tennyo and answered, "Yes."

-x-

It was a small house in the coastal town. Probably the smallest one, but it didn't mask any hints that this Ikari family that resided here for over fifty years was some ordinary bunch of men and women. The estate was surrounded by a lavish garden with a large pond and bridge over it; based on its very appearance, the garden made up three-quarters of the estate while the house made up the remaining quarter as a two-story home. And in front of the front door was an ancient statue of an oni with three horns on its head and wielding a large club, as if to protect the estate from danger.

The men in black suits approached the front door and rang the bell.

A scuffling of footsteps came and the door opened, revealing an elderly woman, probably in her fifties, with ebony hair that was graying at the edges, and was dressed in a blue and green yukata that highlighted her green left eye and blue right eye.

"May I help you?" She asked them men, counting four of them.

"Is this the residence of Shinji Ikari?" One of them asked her, showing her a picture of the boy they were looking for.

-x-

After confirming for himself that Chidori was fine, Yuuhi went to confront Shinji about what his vision was like, but stopped when he saw the boy out in the garden with Ceres, who soon changed back to Aya.

 _What was that about?_ He wondered, and stepped out into the garden. "Hey, you two."

Shinji and Aya turned to face him.

"Hello," Shinji spoke back. "Is something wrong?"

"I just got off the phone with Chidori, and she's okay," he explained to him. "I just wanted to know if what you saw in your vision was accurate."

"I believe his first vision," Aya went and defended Shinji's ability to see events that hadn't happened yet. "If he says he saw Chidori get hurt like he saw me, then that means it's bound to happen. Unless we change the outcome."

"And you think we can change the future just because he saw what may or may not happen?"

"If I saw what happened when I touched you again, I would want to keep it from happening," Shinji told him. "I don't like seeing events where people get hurt or worse. And I hate dishonesty."

"He told Ceres herself," Aya added. "He felt that she wasn't being completely honest with us about her past or the hagoromo."

Yuuhi, however, couldn't believe this. From what he had experienced around Ceres, she was a force to be reckoned with if she ever felt the need to express herself. But to hear that Shinji confronted her and expressed a belief that she wasn't being honest with them… That was like going up against a nuke…and walking away from the aftermath unscathed.

"And…what did she say?" He asked them.

"She thought I had some romantic interest in Aya," Shinji explained, "until I told her that wasn't the case. My only interest in Aya…is that of a friend. I would do whatever I had to in order to help a friend. She didn't believe me until I told her."

 _He's so honest,_ thought Yuuhi, wondering how this boy didn't demonstrate some romantic interest in either Aya or Ceres. _It must be because he's younger. Everyone around him is older._

That, of course, reminded Yuuhi of Chidori when she wasn't in her older-looking appearance. She always looked like a little kid, younger than Shinji by probably two years, and immature. And she always teased at having affection for him.

Shinji wondered what Yuuhi was thinking about, and suddenly uttered, "You're thinking of Chidori, aren't you?"

"What makes you think that?" Yuuhi asked him.

"Other than the fact that you asked me about my vision, you said you contacted her and she told you she was fine."

"Am I that obvious?"

"Obviousness is overrated. It's easier just to say that you're a concerned person. You're concerned for another person…and not something."

Aya got the feeling that when Shinji said 'something', he meant the Eva he had to pilot against the Angels. It was an indication that he hadn't gotten over the darker aspects of his former life in that world he was from that seemed to be more science fiction than anything else. And it would still be a while before he had completely gotten over it and moved on.

-x-

Kagami began to wonder if the Progenitor's discovery of this boy was outdated. Based on what his agents informed him, Shinji Ikari had left a year ago with his mother to travel abroad. This meant that he couldn't be anywhere in Japan. But due to his pull with most travel records, there was no mention of the mother or son traveling by any means off the archipelago.

 _Until we know for certain, we should focus on the other C-Genomes,_ he decided, as there were other Tennyo descendants to gather.

-x-

"…So I hear that Suzuhara declined to become a pilot?" Misato asked Ritsuko later that day she discovered that one of Shinji's classmates had been chosen to be the Fourth Child (and she was certain that it wasn't a coincidence).

"It wasn't expected, but he blew the offer completely," the faux-blond expressed her disappointment.

"Truth be said, I don't blame him for not wanting to get involved, Rits. He just found out that one of his friends is probably dead. He doesn't want to die young, either."

"Unit-03 arrives the day after tomorrow, and we're still a pilot short. Commander Ikari will have my ass if there's no pilot for it before then."

Suddenly, Misato went and asked, "Who the heck are the Mikages?"

"Huh?" Ritsuko responded. "What are you talking about?"

"That's what I'm asking you."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

To be continued…

A/N: Anyone suspect something unusual about the Ceres universe's version of Shinji and the Evangelion universe's version that has exhibited unusual abilities so far?


	4. Deviation, Part One

Creation began on 12-18-15

Creation ended on 12-25-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Deviation, Part One

A/N: Now, we get to see how far Shinji's power will take him to save people without the Eva.

GASP! Shinji awoke in the middle of the night, having just escaped from a nightmare.

Within it, he saw himself (or someone that looked exactly like him, with a look of confidence and a will to defy anyone that wanted him to do something he was uncomfortable with doing) in the company of a girl at a beach that looked like Asuka, but she had red eyes, just like Ayanami's, like she had the two parts of two girls he knew that stood out on them rolled into one person. He saw her kiss him…and he saw himself kiss her back as they fell to the sand on the beach as several waves washed up and down them. But then…he saw himself start to choke her, as if consumed with hatred for some unexplained reason…and the girl tried to free herself from his grip.

" _Shinji…this isn't you,"_ he heard the girl say to him, and she sounded nothing like Asuka or Rei. _"The rage has taken over you."_

He awoke before he could see the girl's neck suffer a harsh cruelty, and he was drenched in sweat. His hands were trembling, as if he had actually grabbed the girl's neck.

 _That's the third one this week,_ he thought, picking up a small calendar next to his futon and crossing off another day that he had these strange and surrealistic dreams.

It had been almost two weeks since he arrived in this world, and he has since experienced these strange dreams that he couldn't comprehend without Suzumi or Aya's aid. And further contact with Aya and Yuuhi had allowed Shinji to ascertain more of his visions about the girl and this Chidori he saw in his contact with Yuuhi. Because of this, he was able to have greater clarity of what could've happened if he didn't have this ability…and informed the household of what could've happened.

 _I gotta talk to them about this girl that looks like Asuka with Ayanami's eyes,_ he wrote down on a notepad so that he wouldn't forget, after checking the date and time he awoke.

-x-

Although it was just another glimpse into the same vision when he touched her, Aya still stood by her decision to believe in Shinji when he told her what it was he saw. It still left her wondering if, just because he told her what he saw, if it could even happen now that she and Toya knew. In her dreams, she couldn't help but fantasize of her future with Toya, living somewhere in the countryside, in some house or apartment in some rural town setting, and enjoying a meal with…

 _We still can't let that part of the future happen just yet,_ her subconscious reminded her, and she turned in her sleep. _Shinji wants to help me find the hagoromo so that we may set Ceres free. Until then, Toya and I have to be more careful._

Outside of her dream, Toya, who still remained awake, simply held onto Aya for solace; even he was affected by the future he discovered from Shinji when he touched Aya, and, while it could've brought a smile to his face, it did cause him some discomfort.

 _Still,_ he thought, _it was what he saw, so we have to accept it until we can be free to decide our own lives in the future we want to write for ourselves._

-x-

"…This is the only family the MAGI were able to find under the name Mikage," Ritsuko informed Misato, handing her a folder while looking on a tablet at several photos from old, medical records. "It's an old family that lives over what's left of the coastal areas of this country. There used to be ten families under the name Mikage, making it a clan of sorts, but then Second Impact occurred, reducing it to just one family of four."

"It says here the current head is Aya Mikage," said Misato, looking at a picture of a woman that appeared to be in her late-forties. "She's married to Toya Mikage, who married into the family, and has two children."

"And you've never met her before?"

"Never."

"Well, we might as well."

-x-

A young girl stopped her bike over in front of the Ikari estate, sighing as she made another attempt to reach out to the people still residing there. She had long, reddish hair, ruby-red eyes and dressed in a sailor uniform with blue wristbands.

DING-DONG! She rang the doorbell, waiting for a response.

The sound of footsteps came and the door opened up to reveal the same woman in her fifties she saw every other time she came to visit.

"Anzu," she greeted the elder.

"Asuka," the elder responded.

"Has she returned?"

"She hasn't. I don't think she ever will."

"You know as well as I do that she's in the house. She's been in there since… Please, it's really important that I speak with her."

"I can't force her to sit and talk with you, Asuka. You know that."

"Yes, but…I don't want it to be strained between us."

Anzu sighed and expressed, "It's nothing like that at all, Asuka. She doesn't hold you responsible for what happened last year…"

"Tomorrow," Asuka cut her off kindly. "Tomorrow, it'll be a year since what happened…and nobody beyond the three of us knows the truth."

Anzu then inhaled and told her to wait outside while she would try to convince her daughter to come down and speak with her son's girlfriend. Going upstairs and down a hall to her grandson's room, she found her daughter, a shell of her former self from the previous year, sitting in a blue and green ball chair, looking down at a framed photograph of her son and his girlfriend from two years prior to the previous year.

"Yui," she called her daughter. "Miss Soryu-Ayanami is here again. I really think you should talk to her about the incident."

Yui, well into her late-thirties, looked up at her mother and responded, "I can't face her. It's my fault. It's all my fault."

"There was nothing either of you could've done. He did what he did to spare us all the unnecessary suffering we all knew we would've gone through."

"Maybe if I had put him in someplace where he couldn't hurt anyone or himself…or consulted with one of the other families about ways to suppress the curse… I didn't take anything serious when I was younger because I hated all your restrictions, and Shinji paid the price."

"No, it's my fault," her mother told her. "I did try to enforce limits upon you. Even tried to set you up with that man, never realizing what a monster he was. I just wanted you to have stability in your life…and I went too far."

"You're not the one who made the choice to hang around with the self-destructive bad boys, Mother."

"No, but I drove you to do so."

-x-

"…This is the beach from my dreams," Shinji told Aya and Yuuhi, standing in front of the waves that crashed against the sand.

"Are you sure?" Yuuhi asked him; this was only the first town they came to since their breakfast, so it was likely they would have to travel a few times to find location they were looking for.

"I'm sure," he told him, looking over at a large rock that had a distinctive, magatama shape. "That giant rock over there."

"I think that's where this town gets its designation from," said Aya, reading a small book that spoke of the rural area. "Magatama Town is named after the large rocks that seed out certain parts with their distinctive, magatama shapes, supposedly vessels of good luck and enlightenment."

Shinji walked over to the rock and suddenly heard voices. But they weren't coming from anyone around him. They were originating from within his mind. He was hearing voices.

" _It's inescapable! It's unavoidable!"_ A male voice had shouted.

" _Inevitability is an aspect of humanity that they cannot accept,"_ a female voice uttered.

" _Shinji, don't let this curse consume you!"_ Another female voice cried out, sounding just like the red-eyed Asuka from his dream. _"You're stronger than it will ever be!"_

" _Rage will be your downfall!"_ A multitude of voices, all ranging from male to female, young and old, somewhat calming and cruel in tone, yelled out. _"It's your heritage! Your legacy! You can't dispose of it! The Rage-filled Anchor will end your life!"_

He fell against the rock as his heart started to beat faster and harder.

Aya ran over to him and helped him up. Unfortunately, touching him against caused him to glimpse into the future once more. But this time, it wasn't what Shinji had expected to see, for he wasn't seeing Aya anywhere, but himself, surrounded by a sphere of energy, screaming in either pain or ecstasy (he wasn't sure which), and there was a young man with a scarred face and torso around Aya's age (he had to suspect that this was her twin brother, possessed by Ceres' former spouse).

" _I'll never let you have her against her will!"_ He heard himself say to him.

"Shinji?" Aya spoke to him, shaking him by his shoulders. "Come on, Shinji! Snap out of it!"

His eyes flared an emerald color as he looked up at her.

She backed away, fearful right now.

Then, his eyes ceased their flaring and returned to normal, and he stood up in front of her.

"I'm okay now," he told her. "I'm good."

 _This ability of his seems to be getting worse,_ Aya thought, concerned that whatever this celestial power was within him was getting out of hand. _Maybe it's like me. His body needs to be older in order to handle the power. But instead, it manifested prematurely, and it's causing him issues._

They walked away from the rock and beach, confirming just one part of Shinji's dream: They knew they were in the place where this recent dream of his had led to.

-x-

"…It's so…isolated," said Misato, as she and Kaji stood outside the Mikage home.

"Most families left to the inner regions after Second Impact," explained Kaji to her, "but the Mikages were some of the families that chose to stay where they've been for decades."

The estate was one of those ancient-styled mansions from centuries ago when Japan was a place for the Samurai, but much of the surrounding landscape had fallen into a state of disrepair, with few trees left standing and a field of weeds mixed in with wildflowers.

As they stepped onto the porch, Misato rang the bell and waited for a response to occur.

"Who is it?" An elderly, female voice spoke from out the intercom system.

"Misato Katsuragi and Ryoji Kaji, ma'am," Misato introduced themselves. "May we have a word with you for a moment?"

"One second," the lady responded and the door opened, revealing the lady from the picture. "How may I help you?"

"We're trying to find someone that went missing a few days ago," Kaji explained, and showed her a picture of Shinji. "Have you seen this boy around here?"

The lady, an older Aya Mikage, gazed at the photograph, and expressed, "Only in a dream. Something of a curse. When people go missing around the country, they tend to go missing for good, buried in the abyss so deep, not even their own ghosts could find them."

Misato sighed and expressed their apologies for disturbing her.

"Wait," Aya stopped them from leaving, and held out a hand mirror that looked as old as the house did, adorned with a diamond-shaped ruby on the backside. "Take this with you. It may help you find who you're looking for, but beyond that, it may not do anything else."

"Thank you," Misato expressed again, and she and Kaji left.

-x-

"…I know for a fact that the boy's family has resided in that rural environment for a long time," the Progenitor told Kagami, assuring him that Shinji Ikari lived in the Magatama Village. "There's no doubt that he's there."

"How can you be so sure?" Kagami asked him. "My men were there, and he and his mother have been out of town since last year, though I have my doubts on that."

"If you need proof, then I'll go there myself and get him."

"You?"

"Yes."

This had Kagami concerned; the Progenitor had yet to disclose where Ceres' hagoromo was (and he had some doubts that he would even tell him at all). And the Progenitor was too important to lose at such a critical time, as well, especially if this Ikari boy was indeed a descendant of a Tennyo.

"Be sure to have your escort with you at all times," he told the Progenitor, unwilling to risk losing him.

-x-

Laying on his back in his hotel room, Shinji sighed as he felt a little better after their time at the beach. Yet, there was still something else boggling at his mind. He wasn't sure what it was, but he would know it when he understood it.

 _I know it's only been close to two weeks,_ he thought, staring up at the ceiling over his bed, _but why do I get the feeling I've been here for far longer than that?_

 _Because you have been here for far longer than that,_ he suddenly heard a voice, almost identical to his own, in his head.

He jumped up and looked around his room, and saw nobody else present.

"Who's there?" He questioned.

 _Look at the mirror,_ the voice uttered again, and he turned to the mirror on the wall in front of the bed.

"What's going on?"He asked, seeing himself, but his reflection was completely different from the way he actually looked.

His reflection looked paler, with a more grim expression, like he'd been sickly for a long time, and he was dressed in a ripped, blue and green kimono, revealing what appeared to be old lacerations on his arms and neck. And there was a small series of burns on his left cheek and just over his right eye.

 _This is a fate I was dealt because I couldn't control the dark side of my family's history. Unfortunately, seeing as you're here, what I thought would end with me has decided to attempt a comeback, refusing to be_ _…_ _cheated._ The warped reflection of him stated.

"What do you mean?" Shinji asked him.

 _The Rage-filled Anchor. It's the Ikari family's darkest aspect of its celestial heritage. Having all of that anger trapped inside of a member with Ikari blood, fighting to control what isn't as easy as one would expect. It nearly consumed me before I was able to stop myself from hurting others because of it. Either control the rage or be consumed by it. Back then, I believed those to be the only choices one like myself had_ _…until I made a third choice, to not let it be the end of those around me._

"What did you do?"

 _The one thing people are often told is something they shouldn't do. There's no happy ending for those that take the route I took, but I did it not for any glory of selfish beliefs. I went down that route to save others from a cruel part of them that wasn't even me. And now…I fear this dark part of my family history has returned through you._

Shinji turned away from the reflection and looked at his right hand, feeling it tremble with an unexplainable feeling of anger.

 _That's how you know the Rage-filled Anchor's there,_ the other Shinji said, _when your hands tremble. Then come the feelings of rage that can't be explained, following the outbursts of verbal fury, which escalates to the unpredictability of violent actions that only get worse the more they occur._

When his hand stopped shaking, Shinji turned to look at his reflection to ask a question.

"What about looking into the future?" He asked him. "Could you see into the future of certain people you've touched?"

 _My ancestors referred to that ability as Future Link,_ the other Shinji answered back. _People that matter have their futures written by darker forces created or sought after by forces confined to the frailties of the flesh. You touch someone for the first time, you see how they will experience the worse pain imaginable, and you feel as though it had happened to you, as if it was you that was the one that suffered. And will you explore the unwritten future enough, you know what can lead to it._

"But what about preventing it? Can you prevent it from happening?"

 _No one has tried._

"What about you?"

His reflection turned away from him, revealing a large burn on the back of his head where hair should've been. And when he turned back to face him, his face looked more burnt.

 _I hated this power!_ He shouted at Shinji. _I hated what it did to me! What it cost me! Nobody could understand what it felt like, being angry at random times for no reason that could be understood! I would start yelling at my mother like she did something wrong! I would raise a knife at my grandmother like I wanted to kill her! I even did something so awful to someone I loved that I knew I wouldn't stop, that I couldn't control this cruel power that was my legacy. Yes, I saw into the future that hadn't been written. Only once. But once was enough for me to realize that I couldn't let this rage harm people. So I took my own life. I took my own life in front of my girlfriend after telling her that I loved her too much to lose her to this power. I burned myself to ashes, hoping that she and my family would be free of the Rage-filled Anchor because only male children born into the Ikari family were the unfortunate ones to bear it every fifth or sixth generation._

Shinji had a sad expression on his face in front of his reflection.

 _Please,_ the reflection told him, _please, don't let yourself be consumed by the power. I thought I could stop it with my death, but your presence proved that I couldn't, that it won't be cheated. It has a will all of its own, and it wants what I and others of the past have tried to take from it. It's too late for me. It was always too late for me. But maybe there's hope for you. You're not like me, so there must be hope._

His reflection then changed, no longer resembling a warped version of himself and instead resembling himself as he was, dressed in his white shirt and black pants, looking saddened.

-x-

Removing her hand from the wall, Aya (with some mental prodding from Ceres) had discovered that Shinji had engaged in a conversation with someone from the afterlife that had paid a terrible price.

-x-

"…So she knew not where the Third Child was?" Gendo asked Misato in his office. "And she gave this mirror?"

"That's right, sir," she answered him. "She said that it may help find him, but may not do anything beyond that."

Gendo crossed his hands in front of his face and told Misato to take the mirror to Dr. Akagi for research into what it was capable of.

"Yes, sir," she responded and left out of the office.

In the hall, however, the purple-haired woman started to hear a voice.

"It's too late for me, but maybe there's hope for you," she heard a voice sounding like Shinji's.

She turned around, but saw nobody there. Then, she looked down at the mirror in her left hand. Within the reflective glass, she saw a withered and burned Shinji, engaging in a conversation with…a boy that looked just like Shinji, but without the injuries, inside what had to be a bare, hotel room.

"My God," she gasped, and quickly ran to find Kaji.

-x-

Tomorrow was a day she dreaded deeply. Tomorrow was a day of grief and agony because it would be an entire year since…

 _Don't think about it right now,_ the red-eyed Asuka thought as she looked out her bedroom window at the night sky…and then at her clock. _Only two minutes left to midnight._

On her nightstand left of her bed was a framed photograph of herself with Shinji back when they were together. They were at the beach and she was dressed in a purple, one-piece swimming suit while he was dressed in black shorts, sporting a lean-but-muscular torso area. The girl's expression was one of happiness while the boy's expression was subtle, a cross between happy…and somewhere near troubled. But Asuka had rarely noticed the expression until…

 _Midnight,_ she thought, still looking at her clock, seeing the digital numbers read out the twelfth hour of the morning hours. _It's officially been a year now since Shinji committed suicide._

-x-

"Hmm?" Shinji muttered, having almost fell to sleep, but getting up after thinking he heard someone that wasn't this world's version of himself. "Asuka?"

-x-

"…You saw Shinji and a boy that looked like him, albeit injured, engaged in a conversation through that mirror?" Asuka asked Misato, making sure she heard right as she, Rei, Kaji and Ritsuko were in a room with the very hand mirror on the table in front of them.

"That's right," Misato explained. "The one that looked injured said that it was too late for him, which implies that he was beyond any form of help, but told the other one that there might've been hope for him, whatever that hope is."

"But neither one of them saw you or heard you?" Ritsuko asked her.

"No. I tried talking to Shinji, but his face wouldn't appear in the mirror again."

"Are you sure you couldn't have just been imagining this, Katsuragi?" Kaji asked her.

"I know what I saw and heard, Kaji," Misato told him, making it clear that she wasn't crazy. "I believe in what I saw, and I know that means that Shinji's alive somewhere."

"And Mrs. Mikage said that mirror may help find him, but nothing beyond that."

"What, so even if we were able to find him," went Asuka, deciding to pick up the mirror, "we wouldn't be able to find a way to get him back here?"

"That's…pretty much the way we're looking at it, Asuka," Misato told her.

Looking at her reflection in the mirror, Asuka sighed at how hopeless this seemed. Suddenly, her reflection shifted one feature that wasn't present on her, and she set the mirror down.

"Whoa!" She gasped, sliding it away from her. "I do not have red eyes!"

Kaji picked up the mirror and saw not himself, but Asuka, with red eyes, riding a bike up or down some road by a large body of water.

"Hopefully, she'll hear me out," the red-eyed lookalike said. "Today's a day of mourning over a personal loss."

Then, the mirror shifted again, revealing nothing but Kaji's visage.

"Okay, I have to ask just how much about the previous Angel do we actually know about?" He questioned Ritsuko and Misato, setting the mirror back down. "You said that it was a Dirac Sea that could've linked to another dimension?"

"That's what was discovered," Ritsuko answered. "The Angel connected to another universe. When the operation to destroy the Angel was attempted, whichever dimension it was connected to, Shinji got sent there, leaving Unit-01 without a pilot."

"Shinji, can I talk with you?" They all suddenly heard a female voice emanate from the mirror, and Kaji held it up to reveal a teenage girl speaking to Shinji as they walked down a street with two older boys and a small woman.

-x-

"Shinji, can I talk with you?" Aya asked Shinji as they, Toya, Yuuhi and Q-Chan (since Shinji found it somewhat difficult to even refer to the woman by her actual name due to her appearance, and he learned it was Kyu Oda) were walking further up town.

"Uh, sure," he responded.

"Last night…were you talking to someone?" She asked him.

"What gave you that idea?" He countered.

"I heard you last night, and who you were speaking with had the same voice as you, except he sounded like something awful had taken a lot from him."

Shinji sighed and expressed, "It was me. Or…the me that used to live in this world. It's hard to explain, but I find myself in the situation that the other me tried to escape from in order to spare people the bane of his family's darker heritage, which ties into this ability to absorb negative around him and redirect it into himself. Last night, I received a visit from his spirit, and he explained a bit about himself and how this power he had possessed a will of its own and refused to be cheated."

"Cheated?"

"He killed himself to save those around him, and he hoped that the power was gone so that it couldn't hurt anyone. But then I showed up, and now the power's back."

"So, then…the other you, the one from this world that died… He could possess you, then?"

"I don't think he could've, even if he wanted to. He said that it was too late for him, but that maybe there was hope for me."

Before Aya could say another word, a person on a bike came past them on the street…and it seemed like the world slowed down around them. The rider turned to face them…and locked their gaze with Shinji, who was shocked at who was on that bike. It was the girl from his dreams, the one that looked like Asuka, but Ayanami's eyes, dressed in a black and gray version of the school uniform Shinji had seen Asuka and Ayanami in enough times to memorize. And then time resumed and the lookalike sped away from where they were.

"Asuka?" Shinji wondered.

On the speeding bicycle, the girl was confused as she continued towards her destination.

 _But…it can't be_ ,she thought. _I saw him die last year._

"Uh, was that he you knew?" Aya asked Shinji.

"I think so," he answered her. "She just reminded me of two girls I knew."

-x-

The Magatama Village seemed very urban for a rural setting to the Progenitor as he and his security detail arrived. But he could care less about it. He was only here to find the Ikari boy and "convince" him to come with him to Mikage International to join the Tennyo project. The sooner he found him, the sooner they could leave this place.

"Where was the estate located?" He asked one of the men that was here earlier.

-x-

"Welcome back, Ms. Soryu-Ayanami," Anzu greeted Asuka, welcoming her into the house.

The elder lady was dressed in a black dress.

"Hello, ma'am," Asuka responded, removing her shoes and stepping into the living room area. "How are you and his mother doing?"

"It's only started to sink in," Anzu stated. "Are you alright? You look as though something happened on your way here."

"Today, I saw someone that looked just like Shinji out in the town. I thought I was being deceived, but he just seemed too much like him. And yet…I saw him in a recent dream a few days, and he seemed different from the way he used to be."

Anzu then led her upstairs to Shinji's room where Yui was, and found the woman dressed in a larger version of the redhead's dress with a darker shade of purple around the neck. She was standing in front of a space on the right side of her son's room where a dark, scorch mark was present.

"Miss Ikari?" Asuka greeted.

"Asuka," Yui responded, gesturing towards the other chair in the room by a small desk where her son did his homework.

Asuka sat in it and noticed one of Shinji's wristbands made with a platinum base and garnet gems adorning them.

"I think he only ever wore those once," said Yui to her, referring to the wristbands.

"He made a single complaint that they were heavy," Asuka told her. "He showed them to me, and I told him that they were nice. I had informed him of the gemology surrounding garnets as a form of protection for the wearer against evil. I sometimes wonder if that's what made him not want to wear them after that day."

"It wasn't what you said to him that made him remove them," Yui told her. "He just didn't want to risk losing them to people whenever he walked out on the streets. He went and had them appraised and found out that they were worth a considerable fortune. A few million yen."

"You got him a pair of wristbands that were worth a few million yen? It surprises me that…every time that he was under the influence of the rage, he never said anything concerning finances."

"My family had no problems with finances. Old money."

"Yeah. Old money. Miss Ikari?"

"Yes?"

"On my way here…I think I saw someone that looked like Shinji."

Yui looked at her like she had said something crazy. It was always crazy to believe that there were other people that looked like people that passed away. But Yui had no time to criticize a possibility.

"Are you sure?" She asked her.

"He looked just like Shinji, though he looked at me like he'd seen a ghost. And… I don't know, he looked…withdrawn, introverted."

"When he was younger, he was introverted. That was my doing because I didn't take much of an interest in him like I was supposed to. My mother managed to get him to open up a bit when he met you all those years ago."

"Why?"

"My rebellious streak. It was only after our family heritage started to manifest within him that I tried to save him from making the same choices I had made in my youth."

"He only ever spoke about you three times, but I was able to understand a little about your relationship with him. He said you were often away from home because you took a position as a geneticist."

"That was only a half-truth. I did take a position as a geneticist…but it was hardly the reason I was away from home. It was my inability to explain to Shinji why his grandfather died in prison and why nobody would tell him about his father. How do you explain to your kid that you don't know who their father is and the last guy you had a relationship with, lack of a meaningful relationship with, tried to kill you and your grandfather killed him?"

Asuka didn't know how to answer that question; every Father's Day, Shinji preferred to go to the beach…and every Mother's Day when he didn't see his mother, he would also go to the beach. In a way, her boyfriend came from a broken family because he didn't have a father involved in his life or a mother that took her responsibilities as a parent serious. She suspected that it was one of the reasons they hung out together as often as they could, because they both came from broken families.

"Maybe there's never a logical answer to any question that is asked," she told Yui. "You never once asked me what I had expected you to ask me last year. What were Shinji and I doing in here when we were supposed to be in school?"

Of course, Yui knew the reason. She just never wanted to force herself to talk about it. Her son and his girlfriend had decided to not go to school and spend the day in bed; the redhead, as she had suspected, had taught her son the ups and downs of physical intimacy long before he had committed suicide to avoid killing her or anyone else.

"I know why you two were here that day," Yui told her. "You're not the first pair to play hooky, and I doubt you'll be the last pair to play hooky. One thing I probably should've asked you was this intrusive question: Did you two at least have the decency to use protection?"

That question, of course, had Asuka turn her face away from the older woman.

"It's okay," Yui told her again, "before I found out he was growing inside me, I didn't use it, either."

"Go with the flow?"

"Go with the flow."

"Two weeks after this day, I cried when I got my period."

"Why?"

"Because he died, because he killed himself to keep from harming me any further. I saw him immolate himself in front of me. He was gone from the world forever, and I thought that maybe…just maybe…that I had gotten pregnant, and that a part of him would be with me." Asuka revealed. "But then I got it, and all I had of him were memories."

-x-

"…So, he's in another dimension where another version of himself that lived in that dimension had died," Ritsuko explained to Gendo in his office. "We're trying to attempt communication with him, but all we know so far is that the mirror connects visually with the other dimension and we've found the Third Child with several people that seemed to be younger versions of specific people from this one."

"And he's made no response to anything said by any of you?" Gendo asked her.

"Major Katsuragi and the Second Child have yelled into the mirror several times, but the Third Child has made no indication that he could hear either of them."

Gendo then dismissed her, leaving him alone with his thoughts as company.

 _How do we go about getting the Third Child back?_ He wondered. _And will he still be able to pilot the Eva if brought back?_

-x-

"…This is the Ikari house?" The Progenitor asked the men that were here earlier, pointing to the Ikari estate.

"This is the place, sir," one answered him.

"Then let's pay the family a visit."

-x-

"Gah!" Shinji gasped, clutching onto his chest as he fell against a streetlight in front of Aya.

"Shinji?" She questioned, helping him stand.

But unfortunately, her touching him had triggered another vision, and he saw a small house surrounded by a large garden, and her possessed brother assaulting the red-eyed Asuka.

" _Where is he?"_ The Progenitor asked her, and then kicked her in her waist.

Shinji had Aya release him, and then he ran down the street, towards where he now knew where the house was located. All he knew now was that he had to keep this from happening. He had stopped some things from happening, he was going to stop this from happening.

To be continued…

A/N: Merry Christmas!


	5. Deviation, Part Two

Creation began on 12-26-15

Creation ended on 12-28-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Deviation, Part Two

Rei Ayanami, without even being ordered to, picked up the mirror and gazed at her reflection in it, seeing that nothing had changed within the looking glass. Until the glass suddenly shifted and showed Shinji had arrived towards a small house surrounded by a vast assortment of flowers and a pond with Japanese bridges. It was like she or any other person that held the mirror (or whenever the mirror chose to act up), they were viewing the world of that dimension from a third person angle in the air or from a distance.

" _Please, be alright,"_ she heard him say.

-x-

"Please, be alright," Shinji expressed as he arrived to the Ikari estate, stopping at the front door.

 _Stop,_ he heard the other Shinji say to him. _Look under the doormat. You'll find a key._

Shinji looked under the doormat and found a key, unlocked the door and stepped inside, feeling an unfamiliar aura of emotion flow through him.

"This was… This was your home," he uttered, stopping in front of a wall-mounted mirror, seeing the other Shinji where his own reflection should've been.

 _Upstairs,_ he instructed him. _My room is the left down the end of the hall._

Shinji slowly ascended up the stairs, hearing the memories of a life that wasn't as lived as his own life in the other world could've been. He saw the other Shinji as a little boy with a somewhat-dysfunctional family structure that consisted of just his mother, grandmother and himself, though his mother was rarely around and there was no mention about any grandfather or even his father. There were also memories of him spending his time with the red-eyed Asuka lookalike, who seemed to be very different from the Asuka he was familiar with; nothing could've prepared him for seeing a memory of the girl and his other self engaged in kissing passionately. He stopped at the top of the steps as he experienced the memory the other Shinji had of going into his room with the red-eyed Asuka and shutting the door (and he saw everything that they had done in there). This world's version of him and Asuka were involved, had been for a long time, and he had killed himself to keep her safe from his dark legacy.

As he resumed his small journey to the dead boy's room, heard a female voice speak up.

"But we've told you already, he's not here, anymore," they said to someone inside the room. "He died last year."

"Your lies are pathetic, lady," a male voice responded, followed by a slap and cry of pain. "I'll ask you again: Where is Shinji Ikari?"

Shinji made his way to the room and let his presence become known to everyone within it. And he saw the red-eyed Asuka and two older women tied up on the bed, surrounded by men in black suits and the Progenitor himself in Aki's body. The women looked at him as though they had seen a ghost, and the men in black suits reminded Shinji of Section Two's agents.

"This can't be possible," the elder of the two women uttered.

"That's him," the red-eyed Asuka expressed. "He's the one I saw on my way here."

"Who are you, boy?" The Progenitor asked him.

"Who are you looking for?" Shinji countered with his own question.

"Shinji Ikari, the boy that lives here."

"My name is… I am him…and I am not him."

The Progenitor glared at him and the men in black got in between them.

"We've been expecting you for quite a while, Mr. Ikari," one of them expressed. "We would like for you to accompany us to Mikage International."

Shinji remembered that company name. Only because Aya had told him about it and because she herself had been there a few times. And that it was now gathering women with celestial blood.

"I'm sorry, but what is Mikage International?" He uttered, trying to be deceptive. "I've never heard of it before…and why are you mistreating these women?"

"Because they lied about you being dead," the Progenitor explained. "They lied to protect you from what can be viewed as a grand opportunity for you."

Shinji looked past the men on his right at the elder woman and the red-eyed Asuka, who looked back at him, wondering how he was here.

"You say I'm being offered an opportunity…and yet you treat them as hostages? It sounds more like you're interested in something else entirely when you say such a thing. What kind of opportunity requires three women to be tied up in a bedroom? Wait, don't tell me. I think I already know the reason why. Tell me if this is wrong. You guys are just a bunch of misogynists."

Soon enough, the man in front of Shinji made an attempt to grab him, but Shinji backed away and ran down the hall towards the stairs.

-x-

"What do they want him for?" Asuka questioned, seeing Shinji run away from the men in black suits and the boy with the scar on his face.

"I wish Shinji had stayed to ask instead of saying what he said about them being misogynists," Ritsuko expressed, watching as Shinji step out of the house. "I wanna know about this Mikage International."

-x-

Turning around to see if they had followed him, Shinji saw the men in black run out the house, followed by the Progenitor, dragging the red-eyed Asuka with him.

 _Oh, no,_ he thought.

"Shinji!" He turned around and saw Aya and the others running over.

He was reminded of the Progenitor's obsession over Ceres and immediately shouted to the older girl, "Stay back!"

Aya saw her brother and stopped running, wanting to keep Ceres out of this as much as possible and because she didn't want to risk losing Aki.

The Progenitor saw Aya and immediately thought of reclaiming Ceres, deciding to try something.

"Surrender Ceres," he told Shinji, holding the red-eyed Asuka by the back of her neck, "and you can have this woman."

After hearing those words, Shinji knew that this guy was out of his mind with obsession, willing to do whatever he had to in order to reclaim Ceres.

"You know what you're doing is wrong," he told him. "You can't treat people like they're possessions or property. I don't know everything about exactly what happened between you and Ceres, but that's in the past. You need to let go and move on."

 _Shinji never spoke like that before,_ thought Asuka, feeling the Progenitor tighten his grip on her neck. "Aaaurgh!"

"Stop!" Shinji yelled, and saw the men in black try to get closer to him. "Don't you try anything stupid! Nobody has to get hurt!"

 _They don't believe this to be so,_ the other Shinji told him. _They're willing to risk harm._

 _Aya, let me stop him,_ Aya heard Ceres in her mind. _Shinji is just delaying the inevitable. There's no solution where everyone walks._

 _No, Ceres,_ Aya responded. _I have to put my faith in Shinji's ability to resolve this._

 _He wants to avoid conflict when that is unavoidable. He has no idea that he could end this with his power. He is more powerful than he knows. Greater than my power. He is merely too afraid to use it._

 _Ceres, stop it. He doesn't want to use the power, even to hurt anyone._

-x-

"Shinji has a power that he's too afraid to use?" Asuka questioned, as she and the others in the room could hear this Aya's thoughts along with the thoughts of this Ceres woman.

"And according to whoever this Ceres is, he's more powerful than she is," went Kaji, seeing the boy with the scars on him tighten his grip on the red-eyed Asuka further.

" _Aaaaaurgh!"_ She yelped. _"Please…please, stop."_

" _Let her go!"_ Shinji demanded of the boy, balling his fists. _"I don't want to hurt you!"_

" _Then hand over Ceres!"_ The boy demanded of him.

"What's wrong with him?" Asuka uttered. "Just hand the girl over."

"He doesn't want to submit," said Ayanami. "He doesn't trust this man."

-x-

"Hand over Ceres now," the Progenitor declared for the final time, seeing Toya and Yuuhi show up beside Aya, "or I'll break this wench's neck."

"Aaaaurgh!" The red-eyed Asuka cried. "Aaaaurgh!"

 _Shinji, let me at him,_ the other Shinji demanded. _Let me show him that he can't treat Asuka like this and expect to get away._

But Shinji wanted to try something different.

"You let her go…and I'll surrender," he suggested to the Progenitor; while the possessed brother of Aya was obsessed with Ceres, he was also here for him because of this power he now had that he was afraid to use, so he hoped that he was worth more than Ceres was.

The Progenitor didn't like this, but remembered that he himself had suggested that this boy would be invaluable to Kagami. But that didn't mean that he needed to cooperate with the boy. All he needed to do was bide his time and wait for the opportunity to reclaim Ceres, regardless of what Shinji attempted. And then he'd have the both of them: Shinji for the Tennyo project and Ceres for himself.

"Come here," he ordered Shinji, and the boy cooperated, walking slowly.

 _What are you doing, Shinji? This man can't be trusted. Please, don't gamble with Asuka's life. I killed myself to keep her safe._

 _As much as I know he can't be trusted, if I can get close enough, maybe I can tackle him to the ground and force him to release her. Then, she can run away._

 _Don't throw her life away._

Suddenly…

BASH! The Progenitor was struck hard in the back of his head by a wooden baseball bat, knocking him out and freeing Asuka from his right hand.

The assailant was none other than Yui, who, along with Anzu, had gotten free from their bonds and came downstairs. She had grabbed her father's old bat and decided to hit a home run for her dead son's girlfriend and her…dead son's doppelganger.

"Ass!" She called the Progenitor, raising the bat back up as the three men turned to face her. "Who else wants to face the babe?"

Before the closest man could approach her, a large rock struck him on the right side of his head, knocking him aside; Shinji had picked up three rocks and threw one at the man.

"Sorry, but you were being cruel," he told the man, and held up another rock to throw at the next guy.

-x-

"Yui?" Fuyutsuki, who was now also watching through the hand mirror, gasped at the unmistakable sight of his former student wielding the baseball bat.

"Who's Yui?" Asuka asked. "And why does she look like Wonder Girl here?"

"That's Shinji's mother," the Sub-Commander revealed.

-x-

As Asuka got up and held her neck to relieve the tension it felt from being manhandled, she looked down at the Progenitor…and kicked him in his waist.

"Jerk," she called him, moving away from him.

Toya and Yuuhi decided that was the perfect time to get involved, and ran towards the other two men. Toya knocked the left guy out with a quick punch to the face while Yuuhi kicked the other on the right in the marbles so hard that it insured that he wouldn't have any children of his own in the near future, sending him to the ground.

Asuka and Yui looked at Shinji, who then checked the guy he threw the rock at and relieved him of a firearm. He seemed like the boy they used to know, but he seemed so different now.

"Shinji?" Asuka asked him.

He looked over at her and bowed his head to her.

"My apologies for what he did to you," he responded to her. "Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine. However, you owe me an explanation. You owe the three of us an explanation. You look like Shinji, you sound almost like him, but your behavior is different from his. He would experience bouts of rage that nearly consumed him every time. And…and… Just who are you?! Who are you?!"

Tears were falling from her eyes onto her cheeks as she asked for his identity. And this had the other Shinji speak out to Shinji, who remained silent.

 _You speak to her,_ he told him. _They have a right to know._

"I am Shinji Ikari," he told Asuka. "I'm just…not the one that you knew."

"Not the one we used to know?" Anzu questioned. "What are you, then, some sort of clone of my grandson that some geneticist made?"

"No, I'm not a clone. I… This isn't my world."

Yui approached him and looked at his face.

"Alternate universe? That's what you're saying, isn't it?" She asked him.

"Yes," he answered her.

She raised her arms up and slowly caressed his face. While there was a slight difference between him and her son in terms of their personalities, she saw something in this boy that mirrored her son, and that was his sense of feeling isolated from his family, causing him to find some of emotional attachment elsewhere, like with his relationship with Asuka. And then…she just embraced him, surprising him.

"I know you're not my son," he heard her say to him, "but I hope you can forgive me for my absence in your life. I am sorry I wasn't there for you."

-x-

 _"I know you're not my son,"_ they heard Yui say to Shinji as she held him close to herself, _"but I hope you can forgive me for my absence in your life. I am sorry I wasn't there for you."_

Ritsuko set the mirror down on the table as she, Misato, Asuka, Rei, Kaji and Fuyutsuki saw Shinji raise his own arms up to Yui's shoulders.

Shinji looked as though he was feeling a semblance of happiness at being reunited with someone he hadn't seen in a long time.

" _Perhaps,"_ they heard him speak up, _"we should all go someplace to talk."_

Fuyutsuki knew that Gendo would have to be informed about this, but he did feel sympathy for Shinji right now, who hadn't seen his mother (even though the woman was the mother of that world's Shinji and not his) and just continued watching the moment.

-x-

"Aurgh!" The Progenitor groaned, coming to and finding himself and his security detail tied up and in a small room. "Aaaaurgh!"

The three men came to and found that they had all been tied up with rope, tape, bungee cords and chains. Wherever they were being held, their captors had restrained them with whatever they had available to use, indicating that they were either not as equipped to handle hostages…or they just had to improvise with what they had.

-x-

Returning to their hotel, Shinji and the others entered the boy's suite and sat wherever they chose to, with Shinji sitting by the window.

"This seems weird," Anzu expressed, sitting in a chair by the bed.

"I'm thankful that he hasn't caught on fire like he did once before," Q-Chan told her.

"He's already done that once last year," Asuka uttered, sitting on the floor away from Shinji by the window, giving him some space, but not too much space.

Shinji sighed and expressed, "I know what he almost did to you. What he did in front of you."

"How could you?" She asked him.

"He told me… I saw his memories when I stepped into his house for the first time… You know he did what he did because he loved you." He told her. "He still does."

"I wouldn't mind hearing it from him, though. Nobody in the village even knows that he's dead. Everyone that knows he's dead…are all in this room."

"So…he's been with you for a while?" Yui asked Aya as they were sitting on the sofa.

"Yes, for almost two weeks since we met," Aya answered her. "He's been helpful ever since."

"And now we know that Aya's family has developed an interest in him," added Toya, standing by the wall. "Or…they're interested in who they think he is."

"If it moves like a duck," went Yui, using her sense of logic, "if it swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck."

"I don't follow," said Shinji, confused.

"These people, these…Mikages (she looks at Aya, who nodded in the positive) that are interested in you… They don't know you're from another world, another dimension, so they're left with only their conclusion that you're from this world, that you're…Shinji. And you are Shinji. I mean… What I mean is that…"

"Because nobody knows that he died last year, and because Shinji looks and sounds like…well, Shinji, it won't matter to them if he is from another universe," said Asuka, understanding what she was saying. "That is what you're saying, right?"

"Yeah."

This, of course, meant that either way, Shinji was a wanted man, regardless of whether or not he was from this world. However, it didn't matter if he was or not in the beginning. He was a part of this world now, and he had the power that this world's incarnation of him tried to remove to protect others from. And it was this power that the Mikages coveted, which meant that they wanted him to have access to the power.

"So how have you managed to keep quiet about what happened to your son for an entire year?" Yuuhi asked Anzu.

"We just never talked to anyone about what happened to him," she answered him. "I told everyone that he and Yui took a leave of absence from the country, but in truth, my daughter became a recluse."

"And I've spent the past year having to pretend he was gone," added Asuka.

Suddenly, Shinji uttered, "Dead. Not gone. Never gone."

"Huh?"

"When people die, you say they're dead. When people aren't there, you say they're gone."

-x-

 _"When people die, you say they're dead. When people aren't there, you say they're gone."_ Gendo heard Shinji say to the other dimension's Second Child with red eyes. _"I mean…"_

" _Right,"_ Asuka had responded. _"It's still difficult to accept because of… I'm sorry, I need to go to the bathroom. Sorry."_

As the mirror showed the girl getting up and walking out of the room, Gendo saw his son with a miserable expression on his face as she left.

" _I think you should go talk to her, Shinji,"_ Yui had suggested. _"Out of the three of us women affected by the loss and your presence here, it's affecting her the most."_

 _And I've felt her discomfort ever since that bastard possessing Aya's brother disrespected her,_ Gendo heard this other Shinji that was deceased speaking to the live incarnation, and the boy got up and walked over to the bathroom.

" _Uh, Asuka?"_ He uttered, knocking on the door. _"May I come in and talk to you?"_

-x-

Sitting on the toilet, but not really using it, Asuka Soryu-Ayanami sighed and told Shinji he could come in. She saw the door open as he came in, noticing his expression, seeing him look so much like him.

Shinji was unsure of how to go about a conversation with a girl that looked like the verbally-abusive redhead he knew from his world, but with eyes like the albino he barely knew. But he knew they should have some privacy, and shut the door. He then leaned against the sink and looked down at her.

"Can you tell me about him?" He asked her.

"Why?" She countered him. "Don't you have his memories?"

"I may have saw a glimpse of his life…but I don't know him…or anyone else here, for that matter. I don't really know the kind of person he was, I don't know if he had any friends besides you, and I don't know who you are. I'm just a stranger in a strange place. There's nothing and nobody that I recognize, so I don't even know how to fit in."

"It's not like you could ever…be him."

"But I don't want to be him. I can't be him. Ever. I am… I simply am…and I can't rely on my memories of people from my past. So I really need to know all that I can from those I speak with."

Asuka sighed and explained that it was hard to be around him because of her past relationship with the man she loved.

"…He wasn't as quiet as you are," she explained. "I mean, he was quiet, but there was a difference to his being quiet and others being quiet. He would sound like ocean waves on the beach every time he breathed. Whenever he was able to be himself, he always tried to keep to himself because he had a reason to not want to be near anyone. Anyone that ever asked me how I could put up being around him, I just tell them that he's really a good person, that he has this gift that he couldn't really share with anyone because if it ever got revealed what he was really capable of, he'd be exploited or worse. He couldn't scare me, though. Even when he was under the influence of the rage, he couldn't scare me. The only time he ever scared me…was when he immolated himself in his room. I still get nightmares of that day."

"I am sorry," Shinji apologized to her.

Asuka accepted his condolences and then realized that, while he was likely possessing of the same name as the man she knew, he probably knew nothing about her apart from what he might've known from having glimpses of past memories. So she owed him the benefit of knowing who she was.

"In case you don't know my name, it's Asuka," she expressed. "Asuka Soryu-Ayanami."

"Soryu-Ayanami?" He responded. "You have two last names?"

"It's complicated."

Shinji then uttered, "I got no plans to go anywhere until you tell me why."

Asuka tilted her head to her right and responded, "Like my boyfriend, I come from a broken family. When I was younger, I used to live in Germany with my parents. But when my grandmother passed away, my mother requested a transfer to Hokane over in the Kanagawa Prefecture. I must've been at least three or four at the time. Then, just three years after we settled in…my parents died in a plane accident. Some people claimed it was my fault, just because my eyes are red, that they're an omen of death and other misfortunes. It turned out my maternal grandfather was Japanese and he had red eyes. I was almost sent away to an orphanage were it not from my mother's best friend, Mine Ayanami, who promised to look after me for my parents, so she's been my guardian ever since. That, of course, meant moving here because my red eyes had the neighbors constantly looking down upon me, like I was some sort of demon that existed to harm others. No one here has ostracized me so far because of them."

"I think they're like rubies."

"What?"

"Your eyes. I think they're like rubies. I mean…they're beautiful."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I knew someone back home that had red eyes, but they weren't like yours. Her name was…is Rei Ayanami."

"Rei Ayanami had red eyes?"

"Has red eyes."

"Here, Mine's daughter goes by that name…and her eyes are blue, like sapphire. Was there a version of me from your world that didn't have red eyes?"

"She has blue eyes, but she isn't anything like you."

"What, is she some sort of troublemaker? Violent? A person that goes too far to make herself seen and heard by others?"

Shinji sighed and answered, "All of the above. I often find myself having to give her the benefit of the doubt for her behavior, though."

"If I really was like that in that world you're from, I wouldn't want to meet her. To be violent towards people, even if it's just to be seen and heard… How can you put up with someone like that?"

"No choice."

-x-

 _"No choice,"_ Asuka and Rei heard Shinji tell this red-eyed Asuka in the bathroom, referring to the former's violent behavior and the fact that she piloted an Eva.

" _Well, that's an awful way to put up with anyone like that,"_ Asuka Soryu-Ayanami told him. _"What's wrong with simply walking away? There's no shame, no resentment in doing that."_

" _When you live in a world where you're forced to shoulder the fate of everyone else against an enemy you don't even know that wants to destroy mankind, simply walking away isn't allowed."_ Shinji told her. _"And it's not like I tried to before. Even if I wanted to, there was simply no place for me to go."_

" _What about your parents?"_

" _What parents? My mother died when I was little and my father wants nothing to do with me."_

" _What about any other relatives? Aunts? Uncles? Cousins? Grandparents?"_

" _If I knew who they were, I would've probably been landed with them when I was little and not some teacher I barely knew."_

"I can't believe he's divulging his past to her," Asuka uttered. "He doesn't even know her! She doesn't even know he's a pervert! And they're in the bathroom. He could do whatever he wants to her and be on his way!"

"Asuka," went Misato, "I think if he wanted to do something like that to her, he would've tried to already. And he speaks to a dead boy that also went by his name…and he had a relationship with her. I think it's safe to say that she's off-limits to him."

"A dead boy's not going to stop him from trying."

"No, but his conscience will," went Rei, expressing that Shinji had a moral compass and the decency to refrain from committing acts he knew was wrong.

" _Do you think you'll ever see your world's version of me or any of the other people you know?"_ They heard the red-eyed Asuka ask Shinji.

" _I honestly don't know,"_ he responded to her. _"I don't think anyone has attempted anything close to what happened to me that brought me here."_

" _And…you have no hope of the possibility of getting back?"_

The women saw Shinji sigh and turned to place his hands on the counter of the sink as he uttered, _"What is hope? Nobody talks about hope in the place I was from. Hope is just a word…with nothing meaningful attached to it."_

" _But do you hope to get back there?"_

" _No. I mean, even if I could get back there…I can't go back. Not now or if ever."_

" _Why?"_

" _Because I promised to help Aya."_

" _The Mikage girl whose brother is possessed and whose family is after because she's possessed?"_

" _Yeah, her. She wants to help Ceres, the person that can possess her, find her hagoromo so that she can return to wherever it is that she wants to return to. If she has her hagoromo, then Aya won't be of interest to her family that want to either kill her or turn her into some kind of experiment. She could go about her life with Toya."_

" _But…you don't owe her anything. You could run or go into hiding someplace and be a nonentity. Why offer to help someone you barely know?"_

" _I don't believe in hope in returning to my world where hope is just a word, but I want to believe in something while I'm here."_

" _Which is?"_

" _An opportunity to turn my life around, to close unforgiving chapters and write new ones."_

" _You're talking about a second chance, about redemption without much of the forgiveness."_

" _Yeah. Yes, I am."_

" _That's very selfish of you…and very selfless of you. I used to be like that. I was selfish to want Shinji all to myself, even when that wasn't possible…and selfless in that I didn't try to stop him from ending his life, just because he feared hurting me. Some people tell me that I'm beautiful enough to seek out wealthy men or be a model, but those are empty futures compared to one where you're actually happy to be with whoever it is that puts a smile on your face."_

" _Yeah. That's the way to live."_

" _I really need to use the bathroom now."_

" _Right. I'll go now."_

" _Shinji Ikari?"_

" _Hmm?"_

" _I know you're not the man I knew and loved…but thanks for talking to me. I hope to speak with you again later."_

" _You're welcome."_

-x-

Stepping out and closing the door, Shinji exhaled and looked at the mirror in front of him, seeing the other Shinji with a smile on his face.

 _When you don't believe in hope, believe in redemption,_ he told him. _But when you can't believe in redemption, there is something else you can believe in that is just as meaningful._

 _And what is that?_ Shinji asked him.

 _Believe in the power of another that has your back as much as you have theirs._

The wall-mounted mirror then showed him his own reflection, and he sighed in acceptance as he returned to the others in the room.

"So, how'd it go?" Yui asked him.

"It was…good," he answered back.

"And it was only five minutes?" Q-Chan asked. "I was expecting your conversation to be at least twenty minutes…if you two even got that far, that is."

"What?!" Aya, Yuuhi and Anzu gasped at her.

"I think we can all agree on that not happening," Shinji told them. "Ever."

"Why is that?" Yui asked him.

"Because Asuka's your son's girlfriend. Former girlfriend, maybe, but she loved him. And I'm not him. She's off-limits."

"Even if there was a chance that she'd be interested in you for who you are and not because of your similarity to my son?" Yui asked him.

Shinji found himself unable to answer that question.

-x-

"WHERE ARE THEY?!" The Progenitor demanded, knocking objects over in the living room as his security detail expressed that, after taking an hour to get free of their restraints and finding themselves in the basement of the Ikari estate, they were unable to find the Ikaris, the Mikage girl and her friends or the redhead. "That boy… I will show him the error of his refusal and keeping Ceres from me. He knows not who he has interfered with."

To be continued…

A/N: And here's the second half of where everything changes. I hope you all out there are enjoying this story as much as I'm enjoying writing it. Reviews are a necessity to know what you expect to see in this story, even from those that have never seen or heard of _Ceres_.


	6. Deviation, Part Three

Creation began on 12-28-15

Creation ended on 12-31-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Deviation, Part Three

Wanting to get as far away from the topic of himself having any chance at a relationship with Asuka Soryu-Ayanami, Shinji requested learning about the other Shinji's mother and grandmother and their involvement in his life.

"…I was a self-destructive woman before I had Shinji," Yui explained her past. "I couldn't accept having any boundaries, so I did whatever I could to be without boundaries. Including doing things I wasn't supposed to do. Drugs, truancy and (she sighs)…messing around with men."

"Children will always seek to rebel against their parents when they feel restricted," Anzu explained, "and her father and I restricted her too much."

Shinji looked at Yui and found it hard to imagine her being rebellious at any point in the past. Then again, he couldn't imagine what his own mother had been like in the past. And the fact that she had become a recluse ever since her son died the previous year just made her seem so…secretive.

"And even after he was born?" He asked them.

"I wasn't as attentive to him as I should've been," Yui revealed. "Mother says that motherhood isn't for every woman…even those that have children, that it's something that has to be earned over time."

"Harsh-but-necessary words to enforce the path to responsibility," Anzu added. "I spent my years working at the Magatama Academy, a minor school in the center of the town, while my husband worked at the recycling plant. We strive to be a green town."

"What did you do at this academy?" Shinji asked Anzu.

"I was the… I used to assist in the administrative division. Every time a number of students left, either through graduation or transferring to the other schools, I helped in finding students from the lesser schools that had potential to do much better with their lives. Instead of growing up to be drug dealers or prostitutes, they can be police or painters."

"Or geneticists," Yui added, although her reason for doing so was to include her poor choice.

"Or geneticists," Anzu confirmed. "It was actually there that Yui met the last guy she ever had a relationship with."

"I'd rather not talk about him."

Suddenly, Shinji's left arm began to tremble again, and the boy used his right arm to keep it in check. He even had a concerned look on his face.

Yui and Anzu sighed heavily as they took notice of this, along with everyone else in the room.

"That's been happening a lot, hasn't it?" Anzu asked him.

"It comes and goes," he confessed. "Actually, this is better than a previous condition I had with my hands. My arm would always flex its fingers."

"Like a nervous tick?" Yui asked him.

"Yeah."

"You're way too young to look overworked and have a nervous tick, Shinji. Unless you're overworked by doing something extremely strenuous, you shouldn't be burdened by something like that."

"He told me that he was one a few people that had to shoulder the fate of everyone else," went Asuka, informing the Ikari women of what this Shinji had done in his own world. "Could doing that account for his nervous tick?"

Yui got up, walked over to Shinji, and asked for his left arm. He showed it to her as soon as it stopped trembling, and she felt around where the nerves were. When she pressed her thumb where his elbow connected to his wrist, his hand started to tremble again.

"Just what were you doing in that other world?" She asked him. "Whatever it was, it was overworking for someone of your age. And…you could also have other, contributing factors."

-x-

 _"…Other, contributing factors,"_ Gendo heard Yui say to Shinji, examining his arm through the mirror in the room.

" _I…I piloted an Evangelion,"_ Shinji revealed.

" _What is an Evangelion?"_

" _A giant robot."_

" _You should see a doctor. This Evangelion may have had adverse defects on your health."_

 _Except the Eva was your project,_ Gendo thought, wondering how different this version of his wife was from the one he knew was within the Eva.

-x-

"…So you actually saw him?" Kagami questioned over the phone with the Progenitor. "Well, that confirms that he's in Japan. And he was with Aya? That only raises the possibility that he's sided with her over us."

"I will have them both if it's not the last thing that I do, Kagami," the Progenitor told him. "I saw the level of celestial power within him, and it was proof that he is valuable. The only male with celestial power in his blood."

-x-

Magatama Memorial Hospital was quite an impressive building that stood eight stories and was situated near the beach, allowing the patients a beautiful view of the ocean. It was also one of three hospitals in the entire town that had the most popularity when it came to its superior staff and medical resources available. This was why Yui had suggested they come here…and because she knew people that could be trusted with utmost discretion.

"…Yui Ikari," went a woman that reminded Shinji of that Maya Ibuki woman that he often saw with Dr. Akagi (and also because the woman looked like a taller version of the boyish-looking woman), dressed like a nurse. "I haven't heard from you in over a year. How have you been?"

"I met some interesting people as soon as I got home," Yui lied; she had just gotten out of the house, so nobody knew where she had been, and she wanted to keep it that way until she could face the truth and tell others that her son was gone. "Shinji's just here for a checkup."

The woman looked at Shinji, seeing him holding his left arm.

"He looks different from the last time I saw him," she expressed.

"I do?" Shinji asked; he was trying his best to keep up the ruse.

 _Maya Ibuki hasn't seen me in fifteen months,_ he heard the other Shinji say to him.

"Yeah, you do," she told him. "You look like you haven't eaten in a long time."

Yui looked at Shinji and noticed that he did appear to have less meat on his bones than her son had before he died. He must've weighed at least ninety pounds, give or take.

"Oh, really?" He asked, giving a small chuckle. "Well, maybe I should get checked for that."

 _No offense, Shinji, but you suck right now,_ the other Shinji told him, expressing his disappointment at this other world's incarnation of him. _You lack a sense of humor. When was the last time you ever took anything relating to your height or weight less than serious?_

Shinji didn't answer as he was led away from Yui, Aya and the others by the older-looking Maya Ibuki.

"I think we all need to be looked at," went Anzu, though she made it sound like an order rather than a suggestion. "We're not getting any younger."

"Heh-heh," went Yui. "When she says that, she's not asking."

"I should know," said Asuka to them. "She almost wouldn't let me near Shinji until she confirmed for herself that I was without the measles."

-x-

"…If this is what Ibuki looks like as an older woman, I'd hate to see what you'd look like, Rits," went Misato to the faux-blond.

"Watch it, Misato," Ritsuko retorted, throwing eye daggers at her friend. "Let's see what you look like over there."

"The elder Ikari woman wouldn't let the red-eyed me near her grandson until she confirmed she didn't have the measles?" Asuka questioned. "What kind of people is Shinji with right now?"

"People that he's trying to trust that believe in him when he tells them about himself and what he is, apparently, capable of," said Rei, being logical.

-x-

Even though it was likely just as a precaution, Aya took what Anzu Ikari had suggested to heart and got herself looked at. Everything from high blood pressure to having her blood tested for anything that wasn't supposed to be there that wasn't there before. Also, because she believed in Shinji's vision of the future that they were attempting to change, she had also requested a pregnancy test; she had taken the home version once, and while it came back negative, she felt it was better to get a second opinion, just to be safe.

"Well, ma'am, your tests came back," a male doctor informed her as he returned to the room she was waiting in for the last half hour, "and everything checks out okay."

"Everything?" She asked him.

"Yes. Your blood count is normal, blood pressure is within normal levels, respiratory, hearing and vision are good…and it says here you requested a pregnancy test, and that came back negative."

"Well, thank you, Doctor," she praised him.

As she left out of the room, just two doors down the hall from her, Asuka had stepped out of another room, holding a small bottle, looking irritable.

"Asuka?" She asked her, approaching her. "How'd your checkup go?"

"Other than getting a month's worth of pills for my so-called depression, I'm as well as I was the previous year," Asuka told her. "You?"

"I'm in good shape," she answered her.

Asuka then looked further down the hall where Shinji had been led for his checkup. Even though he wasn't the one she had been intimate with, she hoped that he turned out okay.

"So…you and him were a couple a year ago?" Aya asked her, referring to the Shinji Ikari of this world.

"Yeah," she answered her. "Why do you ask?"

"Just curiosity. He's a nice guy. I mean, he was a nice guy."

"The one I loved was nice. The one I've just met is nice, too…but… I'd just feel wrong."

"What do you mean? Wrong about what?"

"I loved the young man I knew as Shinji Ikari…and it ended abruptly. I can't just…feel what I felt for him towards someone that is… I'd feel like I'm cheating on him."

Aya could see where she was going with her reasons for not wanting to feel any major involvement with this Shinji. Just because he was from another dimension, she didn't want to feel like she was betraying the one from this dimension, even if they were similar to one another. If she had met someone else from this universe that Shinji had come from that looked and seemed exactly like Toya, she wouldn't want to feel like she was cheating on him, either.

"But…if he's different from him," she suggested, "would you feel for him?"

Asuka sighed…and responded, "I don't know what I'd feel for him beyond what I do right now."

-x-

"…Ahhhh…" Shinji stuck his tongue out as Nurse Ibuki stuck a wooden tongue depressor into his mouth.

It was difficult to look at her because with his head raised, his eyes got a good view of her neck…and her bust, which could've probably rivaled Misato's or Asuka's (he suspected that out of the two, Misato's would've been second to this woman). He was grateful that he hadn't gotten a nosebleed so far.

She then removed the depressor from his mouth and disposed of it in the waste bin with a bio-hazard symbol and removed her rubber gloves.

"With one of the exceptions of your health change being your weight being less than ninety pounds, I'd have to categorize you being in the intermediary between my patients that are in excellent health," she told him, "and those whose health needs to be improved drastically."

"Is it…that bad?" He asked her.

"Not entirely, but I have to inform your mother so that she'll be able to take the appropriate steps needed to improve your health. You should weigh at least one-hundred-forty pounds, so you're very underweight. What disturbs me about that is that you're able to move around in your current state because of the malnutrition you should be under."

"Oh."

"Hey, just eat more and you'll look better," she told him, and opened a cabinet door on the wall behind her and pulled out a pair of small bottles of pills. "And from your blood screening, you're lacking in iron and calcium, so you need to take these pills at least once a day."

"Thank you," he praised her, and excused himself from the room.

"Miss Ikari," she called out to Yui, who waited out in the hall. "Might I have a word with you?"

Yui stepped in and sat where Shinji had sat on the examination table.

Maya set her medical chart down and rubbed her eyes, sighing.

"Whenever you do that, that means that something is wrong," Yui told her, reminded of the last three times she saw her do that. "You lied to him, didn't you?"

"I didn't lie to him," Maya confessed. "I just didn't tell him everything I discovered when I examined him. And when I compared his new medical charts to his last charts, I knew I needed to speak with you. I can understand the need for discretion, but who is this boy, Yui?"

"I'm sorry?" Yui responded, confused by her question.

"I'm being serious, Yui. Who is he? He looks similar to Shinji, but he's off. Way off. It's not just his lack of weight, it's…everything else about him. I had down extensive comparisons between his past records and new records, and I can tell you, medically, he's not your son."

"Can I trust your discretion, Ibuki?"

"I'm bound by my oath to be discreet to my patients, past and present, Yui. I even ran a genetics test and, while he is definitely related to you at the biological level, I'm just not convinced that he's Shinji…and cloning isn't a perfect science, so I can rule out him being a copy of your son. So, please, who is he? What happened to Shinji?"

Yui sighed and answered, "He is Shinji…but he's not the one we knew. He's from another world, a different dimension. Somehow, he ended up here during an incident he was involved in, and now he's with us."

"And…the one we know?"

"Knew. He died last year. A whole year today."

"Cause?"

"Immolation. Suicide. There was nothing left of him."

"My condolences. Why, if I may ask?"

"He and Ms. Soryu-Ayanami had decided to skip school that day. But Shinji had did something against his will to her, and he couldn't let himself do anything worse than that."

"He killed himself because he didn't want to hurt her?"

"Yeah."

"The pure-hearted will often die for the ones they love, no matter what the consequences are to themselves in the end."

"I still wish I could've helped him more. If I hadn't been so distant towards him."

"Honestly, Yui, you were barely out of your teens when you had him. I wouldn't expect anyone in your shoes to know any better than you. You remember about the last girl, right? The one before we met?"

"I've not forgotten."

Deciding to return to the subject of this Shinji's health, Maya told Yui, "There was also something I found in his blood that didn't belong. Some sort of liquid chemical that doesn't belong to any part of the human body. I'm having it analyzed, but I have my doubts that it'll match up to anything found elsewhere for a while."

"Anything about this chemical you can tell me so far?" Yui asked her.

"Unless this boy was from an environment where he was forced to participate in an experiment involving liquid breathing using liquids that shouldn't exist, anymore, this substance has some comparison, some, to the supposed waters of the planet back in its earliest stages," Maya revealed.

 _My God, where the Hell was Shinji in that other world?_ Yui wondered, finding this too ridiculous to look away from. _What were his parents or guardians thinking? It must have something to do with what he was forced to do, piloting that thing he called an Eva._

-x-

In the men's restroom, Shinji stared at his reflection in the mirror. It was just because this world's incarnation of Maya Ibuki said so in his medical report, he couldn't see anything about himself that didn't seem out of the ordinary. But then again, everything about him was anything but ordinary, something that was more like a dream he wouldn't know, no matter what. Then, he looked down at his left arm, opening and closing his fingers, not feeling the minor pain he had experience during his first sortie in Unit-01.

" _I don't know how, Shinji, but it seems more this Evangelion you piloted was anything but purely technological. I'm thinking it was bio-mechanical."_ Yui had told him.

" _Bio-mechanical?"_

" _A cyborg. An organic construct with mechanical features added in. Um, like a person that suffered a terrible accident and lost their arms and legs and got prosthetic replacements."_

When she explained it like that, he just wanted to disbelieve it all. But it would explain the other things about the Eva that he didn't understand.

 _Shinji,_ he thought, trying to reach out to the soul of his deceased counterpart, _I need to talk to you._

His reflection warped and the other Shinji appeared, his face less burned than the previous time he saw him, and his eyes were like those of a blind person's.

 _Don't let my gruesome appearance deceive you, Shinji,_ he told Shinji. _The face of a suicide will always change. What do you want to talk about?_

 _Do I seem completely different from you?_

 _Isn't that the idea? To be different from the one that died?_

 _What I mean is…do I look sickly? Do I look weak and pathetic?_

The dead Shinji looked at him, and expressed that, while he did look like he could stand to put on a few more pounds and add more meat to his face, his qualities would probably serve him better in this world than they ever could in the other one.

 _I piloted an Eva,_ Shinji told the deceased incarnation. _What good are my qualities here?_

 _You've been forced to devote yourself to this Eva to the point that you've been unable to see anything or anyone that is more important than that disgrace to all,_ the other Shinji told him. _Even if there was a chance you could return to your world, do you honestly wish to continue having your life decided upon by those that know more than they tell you? Your qualities give you potential, and your potential gives you strength, strength to turn your life around, to live past the life you had that involved the Eva, which I find pathetic because of the people that devote themselves to it. If your father devoted himself to it, then he's a pathetic person that should've dedicated himself to your well-being, not some thing that's no different from a parasite, only larger!_

-x-

 _"Your qualities give you potential, and your potential gives you strength, strength to turn your life around, to live past the life you had that involved the Eva, which I find pathetic because of the people that devote themselves to it. If your father devoted himself to it, then he's a pathetic person that should've dedicated himself to your well-being, not some thing that's no different from a parasite, only larger!"_ Gendo heard this dead Shinji say to his living self, expressing how he felt his father should've spent his time.

" _I…"_ Shinji had spoken up, but didn't get very far with it.

" _He only praised you once for it, right?"_ The dead Shinji asked.

" _What?"_

" _You pilot this Eva…and he only praised you once for it. That seems like he thinks very little of you. If he even thinks about you at all. I've seen your memories as much as you've seen mine, and there's no indication, whatsoever, that he even takes his role as a father serious, like that's not what he is, even though he has blood ties to you."_

" _You…you don't know for sure."_

" _Then ask yourself this: Even if there weren't any of these so-called Angels to face, even if you were reduced to a bedridden cripple barely hanging onto his life, do you honestly believe that he would take any interest in seeing you, talking to you, or do you think he'd be elsewhere, doing what we both know he's more than capable of doing?"_

In the room, Misato, Asuka, Rei, Ritsuko and Fuyutsuki were also wondering what their world's Shinji was likely to say in response. And they all looked away from the mirror at Gendo himself.

He ignored their glances at him.

" _You know the truth, Shinji,"_ the deceased Shinji told him. _"You don't even need to be under the influence like I had been to know it. It's been flaunted in front of you by him every time you see him, every time you hear about him, every time he's never there to have even a civil conversation with you!"_

The mirror showed Shinji's saddened expression as he was preparing to answer the question that his dead self had asked him.

" _Not a single day would be wasted on me by him,"_ he said to him. _"Not a single conversation where he would even say why he abandoned me all those years ago, not even to expect forgiveness. Not that I think I could ever forgive him. I mean, I hated him for what he did to me…and I don't want to continue hating him. I'd rather feel nothing for people that feel nothing towards me."_

" _If you're subject to the Rage-filled Anchor, you'd have no choice but to feel rage towards anyone,"_ the dead Shinji informed him. _"All the men born into the Ikari family that ended up inheriting this power were subjected to the rage. And as this power has now transferred to you, you will feel the anger every now and then."_

-x-

"…Also, Yui," went Maya to the woman, just as she was about to leave out the room, "when I had Shinji's blood tested, I also ran for a paternity test. Are you sure you don't want to know who his father is?"

Yui turned to look at her, feeling pressured by both her and her own curiosity needing a sense of closure to the question that had plagued her for a long time.

"My mother would probably never let me hear the end of it if I didn't know who he was," she sighed. "Who is he?"

Rather than say who it was, Maya showed her his photo from the hospital's medical archives, and Yui sighed again; now that she knew who father her son, she needed to ask Shinji if this was true for him in his world.

"You care to give me your personal opinion about him?" She asked Maya.

"Personally?" Maya responded. "You have lousy taste in men, Yui."

"Yeah… I do."

To be continued…

A/N: Last chapter of the year. Who do you think fathered this Yui's son? Any guesses? Until next time.


	7. Deviation, Part Four: Revelations

Creation began on 01-02-16

Creation ended on 01-02-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Deviation, Part Four/Revelations

Shinji's conversation with the other Shinji didn't exactly end on the worst of notes, but he was left feeling conflicted between rather or not to thank him for speaking to him or to condemn him for what he knew about the Rage-filled Anchor and its effects on the Ikari men. To be informed that he would feel this unexplainable anger and any time…was as scary as it was to be forced to perform random acts of violence because of it…and never have an explanation for why.

As he stepped out of the bathroom, he stopped in the hall as Yui stood in front of him, holding something that looked like a photograph in her left hand.

She came closer to him and stopped several inches in front of him.

"Hey," she greeted him, sounding nervous about something.

"Hello," he responded.

"I need to talk to you about something. Is that okay with you?"

"Yeah, sure."

She then led him away from the hall and into an elevator, pressing a button that would send them to the roof of the building.

Shinji was left impressed by the small garden that stood in front of them. It was like someone tried to put a small playground atop a building, and this was as close as they could get. Sunflowers, violets, roses and other flowers blanketed the grass and three trees that were present.

"It's…really beautiful," he expressed, seeing Yui sit on a small bench nearby.

She gestured for him to sit next to her, and he sat at her left side on the bench.

"Miss Ibuki had your blood tested and informed me of something she didn't inform you about," she told him.

"Was there something wrong?" He asked her.

"Not in so many words to indicate anything wrong. There were trace amounts of a substance that she suspects may be…primordial in nature. But that's not the reason I asked you to come up here. When she had your blood tested, she also ran for paternity…and I need to ask you this." She then sighed as she handed him to the photograph that she had. "This is the man who fathered my son, but in your world, is he also your father?"

Shinji took a long look at the man in the photograph…and then turned away, feeling the rage trying to overwhelm his sense of morality and higher reasoning.

"Yes," he answered her, his voice showing the sounds of anger trying to be heard, and Yui quickly put the picture away.

"I am sorry," she apologized. "I have the worst taste in men."

"And he's the worst man in the history of worse men."

-x-

Gendo felt crossed by what he had seen and heard in the mirror. He couldn't believe that this version of Yui had proclaimed that she had a poor judgment when it came to men…and that the picture she showed the Third Child was a photograph of that world's version of himself who looked younger and completely disinterested in the world.

" _Of all the men you were involved with, you had to get involved with him?"_ Shinji had asked her. _"He looks like he could account for any child's attitude problems. What did you honestly see in him?"_

" _He had the same, rebellious attitude towards people that I demonstrated to my parents,"_ Yui confessed. _"To say that I found him intriguing would be an insult to you and my son. The fact that he was one of the men I had an affair with was the reason I never wanted to know who my son's father was. Even if there was a chance it was one of the other guys I hung with, there was always the possibility that it could've also been him."_

" _And that's why he never knew who his father was, even after he died?"_

" _I thought he knew once he passed away. All your questions are supposed to be answered after your life ends."_

" _Then that's not always true. Not everyone gets answers to the questions they have, especially the ones they need answers to."_

" _My father's the reason he's not around, anymore,"_ Yui told him.

" _Your father? Who was he?"_ Shinji asked her, and Yui took out an older photograph and showed him. _"What the_ _…_ _Him?"_

" _Yes, him. Does he exist in your world?"_

" _Yeah, but I'm sure he's not related to my mother in any way that involves blood. He's the guy that works for my father."_

Soon enough, all eyes in the room were on Kozo Fuyutsuki, for he was the man in the photograph Yui showed Shinji.

"Whoa," went Misato, who had done a background check of the sub-commander and knew well that he had no children and all his relatives were dead.

" _What'd he do that caused your son's father to not be around?"_ Shinji asked Yui in the mirror.

" _Gendo came to see me one night after he had gotten wasted,"_ she explained, but Shinji didn't understand the concept of the last word she used. _"He was drunk. He came to see me, and then he started beating me."_

" _What?!"_

" _That's when my father came in and saw me on the floor in the kitchen_ _…_ _and did what he had to in order to stop him from nearly killing me. He picked up a knife and stabbed him in his chest, proclaiming that he was unfit to be anywhere near me_ _…_ _and that he never liked him."_

" _But that should've been a justifiable homicide, then. I mean, if he was about to kill you and your father stopped him before he could finish the job, then it should've been justifiable, right?"_

" _Not always when the murder happens to be in your own house and your father's fingerprints are the only ones on the murder weapon_ _…_ _and not when your only daughter's the one to alibi you and you have a minor history of being in several affairs doesn't help to convince the police that it wasn't anything beyond what it was that happened. So he was charged with Second-Degree Murder and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison_ _…_ _and died before his fifth year behind bars due to a riot in the prison yard."_

" _I am sorry for your loss."_

" _Ever since that day_ _…_ _and ever since my son was born, I've sworn off men. I couldn't go through that again, knowing the consequences."_

Then Fuyutsuki got up and stepped out of the room.

-x-

"…Can I ask you something concerning this power that's bound to your family?" Shinji asked Yui, wanting to change the subject of her personal loss to one of understanding what this celestial power was and what it was supposed to be for. "This power that now dwells within me. It used to dwell within your son, but…just what is it? How did your family come to possess it?"

"That's something that seems like a fairy tale…but you need to know, anyway. Supposedly, the very first Ikari had met a woman that nobody else could ever compare to. I don't even know how the story really goes, but when the woman died, her children with the Ikari man became prosperous and lived well to the point that they went from being three children to five families that spanned over ten generations…until the curse started up."

"The curse?"

"The Rage-filled Anchor. Every few generations, five or six, at least, the Ikari bloodline produces only one child, the eldest male, and they're always placed in the most unforgiving of situations. I didn't believe it until I found out I was part of the fourth generation of my family's present existence, which meant that my Shinji was the unfortunate son of the fifth generation."

"So every five or six generations, any one of the men born into the family came into possession of this power…but also got the anger that came with it. Did it ever show up when Shinji was younger?"

"When he turned eleven, that's when the rage manifested. Even before then, it seemed like it was active; my mother and I could never explain why there were people around us that were about to blow their tops suddenly feel a sense of relief and avoid conflict."

"The Rage-filled Anchor siphons away negative energy from those around the one in possession of the power…and is channeled into them, housing the negativity."

"That explains the rage being without a sense of reason. It seemed like every boy that reaches their eleventh year of life, they feel the power start to run through them. Maybe it's a test by the ghost of the woman that married my family's ancestor or just some drawback of the prosperity, but it's something that doesn't go away by simply talking about it or using any medication. I tried putting Shinji on pills, but they just made him sick and caused his eyes to become bloodshot for days. I found myself unable to do anything for him if I didn't even know how to help him. I hated my inability to help him just as much as I hated not being involved in his life when he needed me to be."

"What of his relationship with Ms. Soryu-Ayanami?"

Yui looked at him, then looked away.

"I had nothing against their relationship," she answered him. "It's not something I can be upset about. He loved Asuka and she loved him. Even when consumed with anger that wasn't his, he never said things that were demeaning to their relationship or her. He never said 'I hate you', 'You're not worth my time', 'We're through' or anything of the sort."

 _I wouldn't give myself the dissatisfaction of saying anything of the sort to anyone,_ Shinji heard the other Shinji say to him, making it known that he was hearing the conversation.

"With every passing year since he turned eleven, the rage just seemed to get more intense within him," Yui continued. "The tale only went on to say that some of the men that inherited this power were able to handle the rage, but there was no mention of how they could do so. Some can handle it while others simply couldn't."

Shinji saw a tear escaping her eye and dug into his pocket and pulled out a tissue.

"Here," he told her, offering it to her, and she accepted.

"Thank you, Shinji," she praised him.

Shinji placed his left hand back on the bench…and a cracking sound was soon heard.

Yui looked behind him and saw that a piece of the bench had broken off under his hand, which had gripped it.

"Oops," Shinji expressed, letting go of the broken piece. "Sorry about that."

"You're the second person I know of to have done that. Gendo's cousin being the first."

-x-

Standing in front of the hospital, the Progenitor stood with a vengeance against the Ikari boy. This time, he wasn't going to be cooperating with him. He would return him to Kagami, even if it meant breaking him into pieces if he stood between him and Ceres.

 _I will break him!_ He thought, walking into the lobby. _Ceres will be mine once more! Nobody will keep her away from me! Not even him!_

-x-

"…Where were you two?" Anzu asked Shinji and Yui, seeing them return to the waiting room area where she and the others were.

"The roof," Shinji answered her. "It turns out your late relative has a similar kinship to my own. We both have the same father."

"Do I even want to know who he is?"

"He's pushing up daisies, Mother," Yui told her, making it simple without disclosing his identity to her.

"The fact that you both have the same father is as messed up as the very reason your father died in prison almost nine years ago."

"We both know that my poor judgment is what led to Father getting incarcerated…"

"No, it's messed up because I didn't take the guy out myself."

"Huh?" Shinji and Yui gasped in response to her words.

"You heard me," Anzu told them. "I didn't trust Gendo as far as I could stand him, and when you told me he came to our house after drinking, I suspected that he was capable of actions he wouldn't do without having an excuse to do so…and not as many inhibitions to keep him in check. Why else do people find an excuse to drink? Alcohol changes the brain's chemistry and lowers one's sense of restraint. You get intoxicated, even you would say and do things you wouldn't say or do normally."

"And what if a person were just an angry bastard?" Shinji asked her, sounding different from a moment ago. "What if an angry person behaved no differently from an drunken dumbshit?"

"Uh, Shinji?" Aya asked, noticing that his hair obscured his eyes. "Are you alright?"

"Answer me!" Shinji then shouted, his eyes revealed to be completely black, and she and everyone else in the room stepped back.

He started to approach Aya, but then fell to the floor, coughing.

"Aurgh," Shinji groaned, looking up at them as he shook his head. "What happened? What was I saying a minute ago?"

Aya looked at Yui and Anzu, who looked back at Shinji.

"You mean, you don't remember asking a question just now?" Asuka asked him.

"No," he answered back. "What was I asking?"

Asuka then realized that it was just like with her dead lover. This Shinji had experienced the Rage-filled Anchor taking hold over him at a random period. He had no awareness of what he said or did during that period. It left as quickly as it came.

She placed her hands on his shoulders, but then his perception shifted.

Shinji suddenly found himself facing the Progenitor, who was gripping both Asuka and Aya by their necks, threatening to kill them if it meant keeping them out of the reach of others (though, this was mostly directed at Aya because he wanted Ceres to himself).

" _You drove me to this, boy,"_ he heard the Progenitor say to him, but Shinji saw the background and recognized where this vision of the future was taking place.

It was the hospital they were at right now!

 _Oh, no!_ He realized, and knew that they had to leave right now.

"…Shinji…" He heard Aya's voice say to him, but it sounded distant, like she was far away. "Shinji, stop! You're hurting Asuka!"

As her voice got louder, his vision returned to the present…and he saw the horror in front of him: Asuka Soryu-Ayanami, gasping for air in front of him because his arms had wrapped around her neck, tightening to suffocate. He immediately let go of her and she fell to one of the chairs, gasping for breath as she held her throat. With his hands shaking, he backed away from them and ran out the room.

"Stay away from me!" He shouted at them.

"No!" Asuka gasped, trying to go after him, but Yui stopped her. "He's not safe on his own."

-x-

"I can't believe he just did that!" Asuka expressed, having seen Shinji nearly strangle the other world's version of her.

"It's not his fault," Rei defended. "He wasn't aware of what he was doing."

Suddenly, the alarms went off within NERV HQ, indicating that an Angel had appeared.

"One picks now to show up?" Misato questions, having forgotten about the Angels after discovering the mirror was showing Shinji alive in this other dimension.

"Sortie the Evas," Gendo ordered, stepping out of the room.

Asuka and Rei got up and left to put on their plugsuits.

Misato and Ritsuko were the last ones to leave out the room, leaving the mirror on the table.

-x-

He ran. He ran down the stairs and into the lobby. The rage had coursed through him, but he kept running. Unfortunately, he couldn't get any further away from Asuka or the others because of the people in front of him.

 _Oh, no,_ he realized that his vision had been too close to now, seeing the Progenitor and his men in black. _This is bad._

The Progenitor looked his way and expressed some relief.

"You just saved us the trouble of having to find you," he told Shinji. "Where's Ceres?"

"Did you try the morgue?" Shinji asked, which was unlike him. "Did I just say something again?"

"Get him," the Progenitor ordered his men, and they approached him.

Shinji ran back up the stairs, but nearly lost his footing when one of the men behind him almost grabbed him by his right leg. He turned around thrust his arms forward, shoving the guy and his two companions backwards, sending them down the stairs.

"Frenzia," he grunted, and ran out a door leading to the third floor.

To be continued…

A/N: Here's the new chapter of this new year. What was said by Eva Shinji and Ceres Yui will be explained in the next chapter.


	8. Deviation, Part Five: Enter Frenzia

Creation began on 01-02-16

Creation ended on 01-15-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Deviation, Part Five/Enter Frenzia

"…And this is the second time you've been harmed by him like this before?" Aya asked Asuka, who assured her and the others that she was fine.

"I've been hurt by Shinji before," she explained, "though this is the first time this Shinji has done so without meaning to or even being aware that he was doing so. You saw his eyes turn black. He wasn't himself at the moment."

 _She's like a battered victim,_ Aya heard Ceres say to her. _She won't bring herself to say that he could've ended her or try to leave him, even if he's not who he was in this world._

 _Not now, Ceres,_ Aya told her; this was not the time to be butting heads over the Tennyo's would-be bias against men.

-x-

"…It penetrated eighteen layers in a single blast!" Hyuga informed Misato of the Angel's progress of invading the Geo-Front.

"Eighteen layers?!" Misato gasped; now she knew that there was no time to send either Unit-00 or 02 up to Tokyo-3 to infiltrate. "Position the Evas directly in front of HQ!"

Within Unit-00, Rei's thoughts, while they should've been focused on the task of defeating this Angel, were focused on what was going on with Shinji in the other dimension where he was trying to help this older girl he didn't even know.

Inside Unit-02, Asuka was thinking of what Shinji could be doing to her red-eyed counterpart in that world in the mirror. She saw him choke her, and that made her fear for her own life (despite the fact that he wasn't here right now), that he seemed capable of harming her if pushed too far.

 _It doesn't even matter if he was under some influence,_ she thought, grabbing an assault rifle as the Angel made its descent to the ground in front of her and Unit-00, _if he could do that, then he's capable of anything._

-x-

As one of the men in black suits came into the hall of the floor Shinji was on, he saw him standing in the middle, looking crazed because he had a closed-mouth smile and eyes that looked as bright as eyes were when light was shined on them.

"Stay where you are, Shinji Ikari," he ordered the boy, approaching him. "You will come quietly with me to Mikage International."

Shinji tilted his head slightly to the left and responded, "You're going to bleed out through your nose, ears and eyes."

When he raised his right hand to seize the boy, he suddenly felt uneasy, and brought his hand to his nose, finding blood spilling out of his nostrils.

"Aurgh," he groaned, falling to his knees, looking up at Shinji, whose face remained the same.

"You will die now," he told the man, and then walked away from him as he began to bleed through his eyes and ears.

"Stop," the man ordered him, but was in too much pain to get back up. "Urgh! Urgh…"

Shinji heard the thud of the man falling down dead, and just kept on walking down the hall with the expression on his face.

-x-

"…We got a problem," Yuuhi told Aya and the others. "The Progenitor and his bodyguards are here. They'll be here soon."

"Was Shinji was them?" Asuka asked him.

"Two of them were sent looking for him…and one came back after finding the other dead."

"You think Shinji killed one of them?" Aya asked him.

"I don't know if he could kill."

 _He could if he used his power,_ Aya heard Ceres say.

 _Stop, Ceres,_ she told her. _You don't know for sure._

As they fled the room and ran down the hall to the elevators, Aya and Asuka worried for Shinji. Even though he seemed capable of handling himself on his own, Shinji was still susceptible to the dark side of his celestial heritage. This Rage-filled Anchor that consumed the men born into the family that were the unfortunate ones to inherit the celestial power seemed to be much greater if it manifested within Shinji so suddenly and caused him to behave differently.

"Do you think he's capable of murder, Asuka?" Aya asked.

"Not of his own volition," she answered her. "If the rage has taken hold of him, there's no telling what he can do."

They got inside one of the elevators and headed towards the lobby…and right in front of…

"Ceres!" The Progenitor expressed, elated to see Aya and the others. "Ah, no Ikari men? That's such a shame. Though not enough to disappoint me when I see you in front of me."

 _Let me deal with him, Aya,_ Ceres told Aya. _He's not going to stop until he repossesses me._

 _No, Ceres, I won't let you kill him without killing my brother,_ Aya responded.

One of his remaining guards raised a gun at the group, and Toya got in front of Aya.

BAM! BAM! Two gunshots were heard inside the stairway leading to the upper levels of the hospital, sounding close by.

"Stop! Stop!" A man's voice shouted. "No! Please! Don't! I'm just doing my job! Aaaahh!"

The thud of a body falling came soon after and was revealed to be one of the other men in black, his face bleeding out through his eyes, ears and nose.

Then they all saw Shinji walk over the dead body, looking at them with a grim smile and dark circles under his eyes.

Yui and Anzu gasped at the sight, but Asuka just felt like she had gone back a year in time.

"Everyone is so fragile," he said, but his voice sounded hollow, deprived of the lively sense that he had.

"Oh, God, no," went Yui.

"It's the rage," said Asuka. "It's taken over him, just like it did with our Shinji."

-x-

His perception was like watching the world through an antique television set with the volume on low. But what was warped for this perception for Shinji was that he was just the audience, not even able to change the channel or raise the volume.

"How'd I get here?" He wondered, seeing one of the men in black in front of him dropping to his knees as his face began to bleed through his nose, eyes and ears.

"You will die now," he heard someone say, sounding like him, but he sounded hollowed out.

"That's not me talking," he told himself, seeing the television shift to another man in black, raising a gun at him and firing two rounds. "What's going on?"

"You shall die now," he heard the other him say to the guy, who was now holding his head, dropping his gun to the ground.

"Stop! Stop!" The man shouted, begging. "No! Please! Don't! I'm just doing my job! Aaaahh!"

"And that is why you're going to die," the hollow him expressed, and the guy fell down the stairs, already dead from the bleeding out through his head.

Shinji looked down at his hands and realized what was happening with him. His other self's celestial heritage had to have taken hold of him, making him behave differently and act out in ways he often never would. That was why he said things he had no awareness of saying…and why he tried to strangle Asuka without knowing.

The television then showed Aya and the others along with the Progenitor and his last bodyguard, but the edges of the screen turned red while the rest of it turned black and white.

"Everyone is so fragile," he heard himself say to them.

"It's the rage," he saw Asuka say. "It's taken over him, just like it did with our Shinji."

-x-

"…Aaaaaahh!" Asuka screamed in pain as the Angel had sliced off Unit-02's arms with these strange, paper-like limbs, causing her to react greatly due to her synchronization ratio. "Shiest! Verdamnt! I'll kill you!"

She willed Unit-02 to charge towards the Angel, which responded to this foolish assault by simply firing an energy blast at the red Eva and sending it falling, face first, into the ground.

It was only after her nerve connections with the Eva were shut down was she able to stop feeling like her own arms had been cut off, and this meant that Unit-02 was out of action.

 _Damn,_ she thought, wondering if the First Child would be able to handle the Angel with Unit-00.

-x-

"…What can you expect from them?" The Progenitor questioned the rage-possessed Shinji. "They don't have any celestial power coursing through them. They're merely human."

Shinji turned to face him and expressed, "You're fragile, too."

"What?"

"You're fragile. People that are fragile…are unfit for any measure of power of any sort."

"It looks like he doesn't like the Progenitor, even when possessed by anger," said Anzu.

"But he's viewing anyone around him as fragile," Yui told her.

"You know not what you say, boy," the Progenitor expressed, showing that he was angered by what Shinji had expressed. "It was Ceres that gave me power."

This was something that Aya and the others didn't know about until just now. And it was something that Ceres had neglected to mention to Aya.

"And that's something I should really pity you for," Shinji told him. "To be bestowed power by someone that has it isn't always a good thing. Power is synonymous with poison. It doesn't do anything to you at first…but then, slowly but surely, it starts to change you. It twists your insides, turns you into something ugly and wretched. Yes, you're to be pitied for what Ceres did to you. People like Ceres always have ways of making themselves appear to be victims when they themselves are no better than the people they manipulate to suit their own needs."

The Progenitor looked at Aya and then frowned at Shinji.

"What are you talking about?" He demanded of him.

"I'm not even sure how it's possible for me to know any of this when I shouldn't know anything, but a dark part of me, maybe the part of me that shouldn't be with me…knows that Ceres, as much as she is a victim because of your obsessive desire to keep her with you, is as capable of victimization as any other person capable of foul play."

 _What?_ Aya thought, wondering if Shinji was right, even when under the rage.

"I think I wasted my time with you," the Progenitor stated, and charged towards Shinji.

Shinji was grabbed by his neck and slammed against the wall behind him. His face didn't even change to show the strangling was getting to him.

"You know not what you say!" The Progenitor shouted at him, tightening his grip on his neck. "Ceres will belong to me after I kill you!"

-x-

"…AT-Field at full power," grunted Rei, as she slammed the N² bomb against the Angel's AT-Field, trying to eliminate the enemy.

When the bomb detonated, the explosion unleashed much heat energy that left Unit-00 damaged…and the front of the Angel was left mutilated. But not enough to do away with the prototype Evangelion with one slash to the head, leaving it a sliced head.

-x-

"Stay where you are!" The third agent instructed the others as the Progenitor continued to strangle Shinji in front of them.

Shinji, his face still unchanged by his neck being gripped, raised his arms up and placed them his wrists; while he didn't express his discomfort, he was beginning to grow irritated by this assault on his life, as it hindered him.

"And to the abuser comes the abuse," he uttered as his right eye twitched.

"Grraugh! Grraaaaahh! Aaaaahh!" The Progenitor began to scream, throwing his head back and forth. "Unhand me, you damned fool!"

He felt his grip on his neck weakening…and took advantage of this.

BASH! He used his head and headbutted the Progenitor in his nose, sending him staggering backwards as he started to gush blood.

But then, possibly from the very fact that he had performed an act he hadn't done before, he fell to the ground, passed out.

-x-

Holding his head in the strange, dark room, Shinji had felt the assault his body had committed.

"Augh! My head!" He groaned in front of the television that still displayed Asuka, Aya and the others.

"Yeah, that can occur when you use your soft head against a hard head," a female voice told him, and he turned around to see who was talking to him.

"Who are you?" He asked, seeing a woman that hadn't been there before.

She stood about as tall as Misato, with ebony hair that extended all the way down to her feet, dressed in a strange yukata that looked…almost as though it were organic instead of like fabric, with the green obi appearing solid like bone and the purple clothing that made up the rest of the yukata almost like flaps of skin, but you couldn't tell because of its deceptive appearance. Her face, on the other hand, seemed to mirror his if he'd been born a girl instead of a boy, only older and with gold and silver eyes.

"My name, my actual name," she stated, "is beyond any language you can comprehend, Shinji. Ever since I came to this world, centuries ago, I took the name Frenzia for the sake of identity. Frenzia…derived from the word people of the present refer to as frenzy. Frenzy, which is just another word used…for rage."

She was levitating at least a feet off the ground in front of him, and Shinji made an effort to stand in front of her.

"What is going on, Ms. Frenzia?" He questioned her.

"You're the closest I've ever gotten to ever attempting to commune with my descendants," she explained, "even though you're not my descendant from this world, but a foreign realm. Your similarity to my deceased descendant is close enough to permit you the access to my power."

"Your power? You mean…you're the celestial maiden of the Ikari family?"

Frenzia nodded and set her feet down in front of him.

"I am," she expressed. "I offer you my sympathy for my power having been forced upon you and my male descendants that inherited it…and its cruelest of gifts that became a curse."

"The Rage-filled Anchor."

"Yes."

Shinji turned back to the television, seeing the Progenitor approaching Aya and Asuka.

"You want to help them?" Frenzia asked him.

"I do," he responded.

"But why?"

"Why?"

"Yes, why? You could return to your world, to the people you know, the life you have. You've seen the future and told the Mikage girl of what her fate would've been had she not been informed. Some could say that you've done enough by warning people of the future."

"But her family, the people after her because of… They either want her as an experiment or dead to protect themselves. And she's a friend. The first friend I've had since I've arrived here. I told her that I would help her resolve her family matter."

"But you didn't promise her that you would."

"I didn't need to promise her. If I told her that I would help her, I meant it."

"You don't owe her or anyone else anything, anymore, Shinji Ikari," Frenzia expressed; it was as if her tone, while kind, masked a deep-seated apathy. "You don't need to continue this path you're on. You've done enough."

But Shinji retorted, "I haven't done enough, Frenzia. I've done nowhere near enough. For Aya, for Toya, any of them."

Frenzia tilted her head to the left and asked him, "Are you angry now?"

"What has that to do with anything?"

"It's a simple question…with a simple answer."

"Are you testing me?"

"If that is what you think I'm doing, then, yes, I am testing you."

"Why?"

"Just answer the question."

Shinji sighed and expressed, "Yes. Yes, I am angry right now."

"Why are you angry? What are you angry about? Who are you angry at?" Frenzia asked him.

"I'm angry about having this power being forced upon me, and it comes with a price, a consequence! I'm angry that I've yet to help Aya find Ceres' stupid hagoromo so she can be rid of her ancestor, who seems to be unwilling to divulge on exactly what her hagoromo is or what it even looks like! I'm pissed off with how similar this Mikage International seems to be with NERV because everyone involved seems to be after something or someone, and they don't care who they hurt in the process! Before, I was just dealing with creatures called Angels because my father gave me no choice! Now, I'm dealing with people after other people that are supposed to be descendants of Tennyo for some cruel reason that shouldn't be overlooked or forgiven because too many have suffered because of the selfishness of the reason! And then Ceres says I'm supposed to be stronger than she is, but I don't believe her, and I just started feeling this…this rage that isn't mine."

"Describe the rage."

"It's…it's chaotic. No sense of direction. No reason, no face, no voice. It's just…a constant noise."

"Look behind you now."

He turned to face the television, and saw the Progenitor, Aya and Asuka…and himself surrounded by what looked like a firestorm happening inside the building. It looked the girls were fine, but the Progenitor was getting unsettled.

"What happened?" He asked Frenzia.

"You got angry," she answered him. "You got angry, and that rage was directed towards someone that is causing problems."

"That's…my doing?"

"Anger…when directed, guided…can be more beneficial than anger without direction, without guidance. Be careful now."

Before Shinji could say anything, he found himself within the fiery whirlpool with the girls and the Progenitor, who was now looking tense.

"You damned disgrace!" He called Shinji. "Cease this foolishness!"

"Shinji!" Asuka yelled, reaching out to the boy. "Shinji, take my hand!"

For a brief moment, Shinji recalled what his body had done while his consciousness was elsewhere. Somehow, he had caused the lights to shatter and spark an electrical fire, turning it into a firestorm. It was to stop the Progenitor, but also to restrain him from hurting the girls.

"Shinji!" Asuka yelled at him, and he slowly raised his right hand to her left hand.

"Aaaaugh!" The redhead screamed, feeling like her insides were set ablaze. _Is this what his rage curse feels like when he's possessed by it?!_

When Shinji made contact with Asuka, he felt the rage course from him and into her. But it made it within himself feel less intense than it had been before. It was like…the intensity of the rage was reduced because of Asuka.

Aya, against the advice of Ceres because this wasn't their problem, got close to Shinji and placed her right arm on his left shoulder.

"Aaaurgh!" She screamed, feeling a burning feeling of anger course through her.

Shinji and Asuka, with the inclusion of Aya, felt the rage decrease. And Shinji understood why this was so; the more people that joined him, the Rage-filled Anchor wasn't as intense as it was with him on his own. It was just like what he recalled what his teacher had mentioned to him a few years ago about a burden shared becoming a burden made lighter.

 _The rage becomes lighter the more people help to carry it,_ he realized.

Through the flames, Yui and Anzu showed up and grabbed hold of Aya and Asuka, feeling the rage course through their bodies.

"Aaaaurgh!" They screamed, but it was not as painful as it had been with Asuka and Aya.

The flames became less intense, and Shinji stared at the Progenitor with a his own anger directed at the damaged soul possessing Aya's brother. There were no more screams, only a single goal, which was to drive the Progenitor back.

"This isn't possible!" The Progenitor gasped. "How?!"

"A burden shared is a burden made lighter," Shinji answered him. "And this rage is directed towards you and your cruelty."

He made an attempt to grab Aya, but Shinji intervened, raising his left hand up and unleashing a stream of green fire at the Progenitor.

"Aaaahh!" He yelled, swatting at the flames, but was unable to get rid of them as they spread across his arms and torso.

He fell to the ground and was reduced to rolling in a desperate attempt to kill the flames.

-x-

Misato hadn't known fear like this before. Standing in front of an Angel that had managed to get inside the Geo-Front and NERV HQ. Right now, she wished she was just watching Shinji in the mirror rather than witness the end of mankind.

The Angel was about to unleash an energy blast upon the bridge…when a purple fist came into contact with its head!

"Unit-01?" Misato gasped, almost fooling herself into thinking that at the last moment, Shinji had returned to save them.

-x-

GASP! Aki Mikage awoke, feeling like a heavy burden had been taken from him for the first time in a long time. He found himself in a room, tied to a bed.

"Aki?" He heard a familiar voice, and turned to his right, seeing Aya.

"Aya?" He asked. "Is this a dream? Am I…really here?"

"We don't know for sure, but you're here right now. How do you feel?"

"Like myself. Before our birthday…and everything. The boy… Is the boy okay?"

Aya sighed and explained that Shinji…needed to be by himself after such an harrowing experience that they helped him go through.

"Did I…did I hurt him?" Aki asked her, needing to know what happened.

"You didn't hurt him," she answered him. "He's just… He's throwing a fit right now and needs to be alone so that he doesn't hurt anyone by accident."

-x-

SLAM! Shinji slammed against one of the padded walls of the room he was placed in.

It was by his request that he'd be placed in a room in the hospital so that he wouldn't have a repeat of what he did to Asuka earlier. Ever since the fiery experience ended and the Progenitor was no longer on green fire (which never ended up burning his flesh or his clothes), he felt like he was going insane, hearing the Progenitor's voice in his head. He had suspected that he had somehow taken the deranged soul of Ceres' spouse into himself, freeing Aki of his influence at the cost of his own sanity.

 _You can't keep me away from Ceres!_ He heard his voice yelling at him as he slammed into another padded wall again.

"I can! You're no longer a threat!" Shinji yelled back, falling to the padded floor, grabbing a hold of his head. "You were removed from Aki, setting him free from a dark fate! I saw the future, and I couldn't let it happen!"

 _You can't fight fate! You can't keep me away!_

Outside the padded room, Asuka, Yui and Anzu watched as the boy they knew as Shinji suffered because of the stunt they helped him pull off to save Aya's brother.

 _The Progenitor, whoever the Hell he really is,_ thought Asuka, placing her left hand on the reinforced glass that allowed them to observe Shinji, _says that Shinji is just like him and whoever his father is…or was, but I don't believe that. How can Shinji be cruel when he just saved Aya's brother from a spiritual influence that was obsessed with getting back with someone that doesn't seem interested in them? And is what Shinji said true about Ceres? She sounds like someone that's more of a problem causer than a victim of domestic cruelty._

"Uh, ladies?" They all turned away from the glass and saw Aya in the hall, accompanied by Aki, clasped in handcuffs and legcuffs. "I know that this is a bad time, but…"

"I am sorry for what Shinji's going through right now," Aki spoke up, needing to get that off his chest.

Anzu turned away, but Yui expressed, "It's not your fault. You didn't choose this. It just happened."

"How do you feel, by the way?" Asuka asked him.

"Like myself, but these restraints are just a precaution," he answered; even though he felt fine, he didn't want to leave anything to chance that the Progenitor could retake control of him and place them in danger in his bid to reclaim Ceres. "I'm guessing that Shinji took possession of the Progenitor into himself. That's why I don't feel his presence within me."

"That's what we believe," Anzu confessed, looking down at Shinji as he appeared to be in a moment of calmness that overtook him. "He set you free at the cost of himself keeping the Progenitor in check within himself."

"Aki told me that he thinks he heard Shinji say something before he lost consciousness," went Aya to them. "Tell them."

"It might be nothing…but do any of you know anyone called…Frenzia?" Aki asked them.

"I'm sorry, but no," Yui responded.

"It's the first I've ever heard of that name," Anzu added in.

"Wait, is the exact name?" Asuka asked him. "Frenzia, which sounds like it was derived from the word we know as frenzy?"

"Yeah. Have you heard of them?"

"I thought it was nothing, but…last year…before that day, Shinji, in his rage, uttered that name once. Only once. I don't know why."

"Someone does," went Yui, looking down at Shinji, who was now curled up on the padded floors. "And now I'm interested in knowing for myself."

To be continued…

A/N: Seriously, readers, please! Reviews! Reviews matter! They tell what's enjoyed, what's expected, and what could be expected! Please, give reviews!


	9. Deviation, Part Six: Dummies

Creation began on 01-15-16

Creation ended on 02-10-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Deviation, Part Six/Dummies

It was either an act of God…or the work of the Devil, but Unit-01 had defeated the Angel under the influence of the Dummy System. But not without repercussions. The Eva's head was severed from the body and both its legs were severed at the waist. Its savagery left the Angel's remains scattered allover the Geo-Front.

"The damages to all three Evas is over the Hayflick Limit," said Maya to Ritsuko a day later, after the Angel battle.

"Along with the damage done to the base, we're dead in the water," added Shigeru.

"Fortunately, the MAGI was undamaged," went Ritsuko. "We can move it to the secondary command center and resume operations."

While the rest of NERV was trying to cope with the damage caused by the Angel, Misato, Asuka and Rei (despite her injuries) returned to the room where the mirror was left to resume watching what Shinji was going through.

"He went crazy?" Asuka questioned, seeing Shinji in a padded room, throwing himself against the walls and floor. "But he's not wearing a straitjacket."

It was through a past viewing that the three saw Shinji save an older girl's brother, but somehow ended up going crazy and needed to be put into a padded room.

" _I am sorry for what Shinji's going through right now,"_ they heard the girl's brother say to Yui, Anzu and the red-eyed Asuka, looking as though he had been relieved of all his heavy burdens.

-x-

Aya had new reasons to be suspicious of Ceres after what Shinji did to save the both of them from the Progenitor, but now she needed to speak with the Tennyo in order to understand what she knew about this Frenzia person.

 _Ceres,_ she called out to her ancestor. _Ceres, answer me._

Standing in front of a mirror, the young woman's reflection warped to resemble Ceres, who seemed to be hiding something.

 _What is it?_ Ceres asked her, her voice sounding darker than it had been when they first conversed.

 _Shinji saved my brother from your spouse by taking his consciousness into himself, but now you owe us an explanation. You know something about Shinji's celestial background. Something you're not divulging. Who is Frenzia?_

Ceres, for the first time, looked hesitant in answering Aya's questions.

 _You know who Frenzia is,_ Aya told her. _I know you do. No more secrets like it's some kind of game. Shinji, despite his suspicions of you, saved you from the Progenitor, and now we need to help him! Who is Frenzia?!_

And Ceres had no choice but to explain what she knew about Frenzia.

 _Frenzia…was a Tennyo that arrived to Earth before I ever did,_ she told Aya, _and when we met on Earth for the first time…she questioned my reasons for being here._

 _You make it sound as though she didn't trust you or see you as a person. And based upon what Shinji said when he was possessed by his rage, along with what the Progenitor said, you're not being entirely honest about what happened to you…and you haven't been entirely honest with me, either._

 _You're saying you don't trust me?_

 _How can I trust you when you're not being honest with me. It's just as Shinji said. We can't be honest with anyone if we're not honest with ourselves. We tell lies to people that stem from the lies we tell ourselves because we can't admit or face the truth. And you're not giving much of anything that is nothing but the truth…except that this Frenzia was a Tennyo like you…and she had a reason to be suspicious of you._

Aya then walked away from the mirror, leaving the Tennyo alone with an expression that was a subtle cross between sadness…and anger.

-x-

"…How is he?" Yui heard Aki ask her, being brought down the hall by Toya to see how Shinji was doing, and turned to face the two men.

"He's sleeping now," she answered Aki. "But for how long, I can't say for sure."

Aki took a look in the window and at Shinji, who was asleep on the padded floor, looking as peaceful as he could be for the time being. But knowing that Shinji took the Progenitor into himself made him feel guilty about everything that had happened ever since his and Aya's sixteenth birthday.

"Aki? Toya?" Aki turned and saw Aya walking down the hall.

"Aya," he greeted back. "Did Ceres say anything about Frenzia?"

Aya sighed and expressed, "I think Shinji's right about her. Ceres is just… She won't divulge anything we really need to know about. As much as she wants her hagoromo back, she doesn't want to admit to anything she may have done."

"That's awful," said Yui to her. "That makes her an awful person, keeping secrets and not telling you what you need to know if it helps her out."

Aya bowed her head to Yui and added, "She did say that Frenzia was a Tennyo that had arrived on Earth some time before she did…and that she had suspicions about Ceres."

"Something tells me that Ceres wasn't liked by Frenzia because of these suspicions," Yui told her.

-x-

"…So, I'll be here at the Magatama Memorial Hospital," went Asuka to her guardian, Mine, over the phone. "No, there's no need to come and get me. I'm fine. Really, I'm okay. I…I met up with Shinji after a whole year…and he's a lot different from when I saw him last."

While Asuka did say to her guardian that she was with Shinji, she didn't divulge that the boy she saw wasn't the one she had fallen in love with years ago. That was something that she couldn't explain to anyone just yet. Or maybe ever. She wasn't sure herself, even after what she had experienced earlier that evening.

 _I saw his past,_ she thought, hanging up her cell phone and putting it away in her bag. _I saw his pain._

Somehow, probably because she touched him during the attempt to stop Aya's brother, she had become an explorer of this Shinji Ikari's past, from his childhood to his present. It was like watching a movie on fast forward, but everything that ever happened to this Shinji had been laid out before her eyes in that instant. His abandonment by his father shortly after the death of his mother, the years of isolation away from other people (which explained his lack of relationships), the sudden and cold reunion with his father, who forced him to pilot an Evangelion against a giant creature called an Angel, and every other Angel following that one along with having to put up with a redhead that looked just like her, but with blue eyes while the girl that looked like Rei Ayanami had red eyes. It wasn't a life that should've been forced upon any person like him or even a younger child, as it was more like an obligation, a senseless duty made even more senseless because of how heartless his father had been towards him and the apparent unwillingness of those around him to see him as a person in need of a life that had people that cared about him as a person and not as a pilot or pawn or competition (in the blue-eyed Asuka's case, who seemed to be as every bit of the aggressive as Shinji had described her).

 _Shinji, I don't know if you can hear my heart, but this Shinji seems like a good person that had been born under a cursed star, just like we had. He saved me, he saved Aya's brother, and now he needs to be saved himself. What do we do? What are we supposed to do?_

-x-

"…Was this part of your scenario, Ikari?" Fuyutsuki asked Gendo in his office, regarding the damaged Unit-01 and the Dummy System.

"Scenario?" Gendo questioned. "The scenario has been crippled ever since that day occurred."

Hearing this made Fuyutsuki suspect that Gendo, despite his neglect towards his son, had greatly required him for his grand scheme. The fact that Shinji wasn't here now, but in another dimension, seen only through an antique hand mirror, made the madman seem incapable of achieving his objective.

"While a loss for NERV, the Dummy System has become an adequate replacement for the Third Child," Gendo explained. "So this shouldn't be a hindrance to the scenario."

"And what of your son?" Fuyutsuki asked.

Gendo didn't answer him, implying he either had no answer…or simply considered him a lost cause.

"So long as we have Unit-01, Adam and Lilith, NERV will suffice," he said instead.

-x-

"…So Ceres didn't say anything more than that?" Shinji heard someone, a woman, say as he awoke in the padded room.

"Nothing," he heard Aya's voice in response. "Shinji was right when he said that there are people that lie to themselves as much as they lie to themselves because they can't or won't admit to some truth they were involved in. Ceres was involved in something with the Progenitor to the point that she won't admit it, even if it means finding her hagoromo."

As he struggled to rise to his feet, he continued to hear the conversation between Aya and whoever it was that she was talking to.

"Whoever Frenzia was, I'm sure she had a reason to be suspicious of Ceres," the other woman sighed.

"It's only a possibility, but maybe Ceres is afraid of her," Aya stated.

"Ceres doesn't seem like the type of woman to be afraid of another woman. Then again, Ceres isn't exactly a modern-day woman, so I don't know if she even has any fears."

When he got onto his feet, he approached the window and pressed his hands and face against it.

"Hello?" He called out, seeing that it was Yui that Aya was conversing with, and they turned to face him. "How long was I out?"

Yui pressed her left hand against the glass and revealed that he'd been asleep for less than two hours.

"Shinji…are you alright?" Aya asked him.

"For the time being," he answered. "I don't hear his voice in my head…or his obsession for Ceres…an obsession that she caused."

"The worst part of what you just said…is that I believe you."

"Is your brother alright?"

"He's okay. He's grateful."

"Let him know his thanks is appreciated. I won't let any of you suffer because of him."

"Shinji," Yui uttered to him. "When we were facing the Progenitor… I saw your past."

"You…saw my past?" He asked.

"I did, too, Shinji," Aya confessed to him. "I saw what you went through, how you suffered, and who hurt you."

"You poor, poor soul," Yui called him, sympathizing with the hurt Shinji experienced. "Your father went and left you alone and didn't look back. You weren't even four years old when your mother died."

It was an old memory. One that he couldn't forget about because it hurt too much.

"You can't undo the past, no matter how painful it is," he uttered. "All you can do…is move on and try to forget about what hurts you as best as you can."

"We were trying to find out about this Frenzia from Ceres, but she wouldn't tell me much of anything," Aya told him.

"I don't expect Ceres to be willing to say anything," he responded, hoping that he could help them, even while in the state he was in. "But I saw Frenzia. I spoke with her."

"What was she like?" Yui asked him.

"Sympathetic," he described the Tennyo. "She asked me why I wanted to help Aya and the others when I could just return to my world, and I told her that I promised Aya I would help her find Ceres' robes so that she could move on. She was testing me."

"Was she anything like Ceres?" Aya asked.

"There was nothing in our encounter that made me suspect she was anything like Ceres."

Then, because of their similar circumstances, Aya had to ask Shinji this question.

"Do you think it's possible…if you can talk to her again? Shinji?" She asked him.

Shinji suddenly felt an unfamiliar sensation from the base of his spine going up his neck.

"Maybe," he groaned, and lowered to the floor. "Keep away, please. Keep away."

-x-

 _"Keep away, please,"_ Misato, Rei and Asuka heard Shinji say to the ladies as he lowered to the floor of the padded room. _"Keep away."_

"Whoever this Ceres is, she seems like a really terrible person," Misato expressed.

 _The woman called him a poor soul,_ thought Rei, as the women that touched Shinji had somehow discovered his past as though they themselves had experienced it. _That he lost his mother at an early age and that Commander Ikari had abandoned him shortly after._

 _He lost his mother at an early age, too?_ Asuka wondered.

-x-

As Asuka walked back to where Shinji had been placed for his own protection and everyone else's, she noticed a young woman, probably in her late-twenties, walking down the hall opposite of the way she was walking, sporting a large belly underneath her green dress. She felt a mild tinge of envy at her…and every other woman, for that matter. Every time she saw an expectant mother, she was reminded of something that she couldn't have for herself because the guy she loved was dead. And seeing this other Shinji Ikari's past before her eyes and his envy of those that have parents that actually give a damn about them only seemed to make the envy she had feel worse.

 _Damn it,_ she thought, trying to recall a time when she didn't have these feelings of emptiness. _These feelings hurt more than my monthly visitors._

When she reached the wing where the hospital had its patients confined to rubber rooms, her thoughts had finally strayed away from her envy…but right into her longing and misery.

"Asuka," went Aya to her, "are you alright?"

"Yeah, I just wasn't feeling well a short while ago," she lied.

Yui, however, noticed the signs when she saw Asuka hold her abdomen with her left arm.

"Aya, maybe you should go see how your brother is holding again," she suggested to the Mikage girl. "He might not seem it, but he did get a huge relief a few hours ago. You'd want to make sure that he stays that way."

Aya nodded in the positive and walked away from the window that displayed a fallen Shinji.

When she was gone, Yui felt she could speak with Asuka without conflict.

"You saw a pregnant woman again, didn't you?" She asked her; earlier in the day when the anniversary of their Shinji's suicide, Asuka had informed her about her period and envy of other women that could have families with the men they loved.

"Yeah," Asuka answered back.

Slam! One of Shinji's hands came up from behind the window and pressed against it.

"Aaah!" Both ladies gasped, seeing Shinji rise up to his feet.

"I was able to reach out to her during my struggle with the Progenitor," he told them. "Frenzia…is willing to have an audience with us."

-x-

With everyone involved in this matter present, Aya and Toya hoped that this Frenzia would be of great help and fill in the gap of questions that Ceres didn't and wouldn't answer.

"Whenever you're ready, Shinji," Yui told him.

Shinji sighed and thought of Frenzia, only Frenzia, standing in front of them all and explaining to them what they needed to know. His hair started to stand on end…and a glowing, gaseous form began to appear in front of them.

Aki, merely because he was being cautious, stood in front of his sister in case the Progenitor showed up and tried to do something that would hurt her.

The glowing gas assumed a humanoid shape, and took on more feminine traits…until the Tennyo that Shinji had encountered was present, exactly as she had been when he saw her.

"My God," Asuka gasped, covering her mouth.

"I'm no god," Frenzia expressed, looking at them all, "but I believe in heavenly beings that exist beyond mortality."

"Are you…really Frenzia?" Aya and Yui asked her.

"I am," she answered, bowing her head, and they bowed back. "My sympathy and condolences for any losses that each of you have experienced."

"Thank you," went Aki to her.

Frenzia looked at him, seeing no trace of the soul of Ceres' spouse left in him, and gave him a small smile that he needed.

"Your ancestor's presence has been completely removed from you," she told him. "You're free of his influence. Shinji took care of that. I shall do my best to keep the Progenitor at bay while his soul resides within Shinji's."

Aki bowed his head to her.

Suddenly, Ceres' face appeared in a glass mirror on a wall behind Aya.

Frenzia raised her right hand up, and made a pulling gesture that brought Ceres out of the mirror…and left the other Tennyo standing in front of them.

"Whoa," Asuka gasped, seeing that this woman looked similar to Aya…but her hair and eyes were completely different from the other girl's.

"Unreal," went Anzu.

"Impossible," added Yui.

"Crazy," added Yuuhi.

"Ceres," greeted Frenzia to the other Tennyo.

"Frenzia," Ceres greeted back, her tone that of anger being held back.

"If you're expecting some sort of absolution for the displaced Shinji's unintended method of dealing with your spouse, I wouldn't expect any."

"I wouldn't expect any. Not from you."

"You were careless. I warned you not go down that path, but you did, anyway."

"Like you're any better?"

Frenzia looked at Yui and Anzu and said, "I turned away from what you would call being a slave to the flesh's desires. While my power became the inheritance of my descendants, it came with a curse. One I didn't want for any of them."

"Frenzia," went Shinji to her. "Please…we need clarity to what we need to know. Please."

She nodded and would reveal to them all that she knew.

"It was an eternity ago," she stated, "that Tennyo, or the women that you refer to as being heavenly, lived with only purpose in their lives. Reproduction with whoever they decided to ensnare for themselves. And back then, it was all they followed."

"Reproduction?" Yui questioned. "You mean, like, eugenics or biological determination?"

"What's that?" Shinji asked.

"Survival of the fittest through selective breeding. Generations of scientists, biologists, behavior experts all believed that people of the future could be…better…if people of the present were…bred better and not so diverse."

"I don't understand," Aya told her.

"Me, neither," added Asuka.

"Think of it as…your DNA, your biological attributes, not your mind or personality…is what determines society," Yui tried to explain better. "Your genetics determine…where you can work…who you should marry…and what you're capable of achieving. Your very life, your very future, decided for you by others, just like that, and you had no say at all."

"And Tennyo were no different," said Frenzia.

"So, then Ceres…" Aki uttered, while Ceres demonstrated anger at this being explained. "And you?"

"Not I," she declared. "I was unwilling to follow that route. If I ever met someone I wanted to settle down with, they had to be the only one."

"So, then our ancestor from the Ikari family was the only man you loved?" Anzu asked her.

"Yes. I was never going to move on and start over with someone else like many of my fellow Tennyo had done over the generations."

"What about your relationship with Ceres?" Toya asked her.

"We have no relationship," Ceres uttered.

"She's right," Frenzia supported. "And she's unwilling to admit to any wrongs she did following her biological drive."

"Like with the Progenitor?" Yuuhi asked.

"He was injured…and she gave him some of her power, which was something the Tennyo would always do to whoever gave them seed."

"And that's why he became the way he did?" Aya asked, which earned a glare from Ceres. "Because the power made him like that?"

"You don't know anything, Frenzia!" Ceres yelled at the other Tennyo.

"I know your spouse wanted to protect you from any possible danger, so you gave him power. But it, combined with his wanting to protect you, corrupted him. He eventually became obsessed with wanting you by his side at all times that he took your hagoromo and hid it from you. You couldn't leave the Earth without your hagoromo, so you were bound here. He wouldn't tell you where he hid it, and then he decided that he needed to protect you from your own children, the eldest of whom he murdered in front of you when you tried to flee from him!" Frenzia revealed, which caused Aya and Aki to look at Ceres; this was something that she didn't tell Aya at all. "So you killed him, and that's why Ms. Mikage's brother had scars like your spouse's when he died. But he wouldn't let you go. Even in death, he wouldn't let you go."

Ceres turned her face away from them and didn't say anything else.

"Frenzia," went Toya to the Tennyo. "Can you help us find out where Ceres' hagoromo is?"

Frenzia looked at him…and gave a 'thumbs-up' gesture.

"I wouldn't accept help from her," Ceres expressed, but in truth, she just didn't want Frenzia's help in finding her hagoromo.

"I know you wouldn't accept my help, Ceres. But if asked by others, I will do my best to help them."

-x-

"…So Ceres is just another breeder," went Misato; ever since Second Impact, with the major decline in the human population, some of the younger survivors found this revelation as an excuse to have children.

"And from the way she responds to what this Frenzia says," added Asuka, "everything that she did in the past, including killing her husband, who was just another guy that could give her children, is true."

Rei held up the mirror as it showed Frenzia, who looked almost Shinji, only older and feminine, looking over at Shinji.

" _It'll be a while before he can control the power, but by using the Rage-filled Anchor against her spouse to protect others, you're bound to be capable of greater feats,"_ she heard her say to him.

" _Would I be able to help them more?"_ Shinji asked her.

" _Should you choose to,"_ she answered.

-x-

When the conversation ended and Shinji was left alone to rest, Aya and Toya were left with their conflicting beliefs about Ceres' past now that they had more clarity of her. Accompanied by Anzu, the young couple pondered on how to ever speak with the Tennyo of the Mikage family, knowing that they couldn't see her with the same eyes from before.

"Still can't believe that Ceres would actually…do something like that," Aya uttered, sitting in a chair in an empty waiting room with Toya and Anzu.

Anzu decided to speak up and say, "It gives new meaning to what people mean when they say, _'Reap what you sow'_."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aya asked her.

"Eventually, you must face up to the consequences of what you've done. In the end, regardless of who seeks you for whatever reasons, be they with good intentions or for personal vendettas, whatever you yourself have done in your past makes you your own worst enemy. And it would seem that that's what Ceres has become over time. She's her own worst enemy because of the choices she made…and because she won't admit to her faults being her own doing."

"She made the Progenitor what he was before she killed him."

"While I can understand the pain any mother feels after knowing or even watching one of their own children die, I can't sympathize with someone that views men simply as breeding stock. It is true, men and women have their beliefs when it comes to having children, but those that invest their remaining years in rearing them have to feel the loss of losing them, be it natural causes or unnatural causes. Even losing your spouse to those same causes should affect your conscience."

"I lost my father over a year ago," Aya expressed. "He was going to kill me if it meant stopping Ceres from harming the family…but he couldn't do it."

"My condolences in the loss of your father," Anzu sympathized.

As the women and Toya conversed, in another part of the hospital, Yui and Asuka were speaking about the conversation from earlier.

"Hard to believe that that was Frenzia," said Asuka to the older woman. "That was…your family's celestial ancestress."

"And she spoke the truth. She knew Ceres, what she did…and why. And her own sadness over her descendants that were afflicted by the Rage-filled Anchor was genuine. Even her sadness towards our Shinji's suicide was genuine." Yui expressed. "Some would say that it's an honor to meet their ancestor, but it wasn't really an honor to meet Frenzia."

"What was it, then?"

"It was a privilege."

"A privilege?"

"Honor is for the samurai. Privilege is for regular people. To me, it is a privilege to know someone…just like how it was a privilege to know you cared about Shinji when you met him."

-x-

Sleeping off a sedative, Shinji lied on the padded floor of the cell. After the conversation ended, he requested that he be sedated so as to avoid having to hurt himself in a fit. In his dreams, he found himself in a foggy forest on a path lined with lanterns. It seemed eerie…but it seemed welcoming at the same time.

"Hey, Shinji," he turned to the left and saw…Shinji, not as burnt as before, sitting on a large rock.

"Shinji," he greeted his doppelganger of this dimension he was a stranger in. "I didn't see or feel you at the meeting with Frenzia."

"Oh, I was there," the dead boy told him, and then pointed to ground in front of the rock. "But I had to help Frenzia in keeping him in check, since he's now a resident inside your body."

The Progenitor, tied up in chains and his mouth wrapped in cloth to silence him, laid bound on the ground, out cold.

"I am sorry," Shinji apologized to him.

"Don't be," the dead boy responded. "You said you were going to help Aya, and you are helping her. You saved her brother, set him free from a man Ceres herself made into a monster. And you were right about something about Ceres."

"What was I right about with her?"

"Her bias towards men."

"And your mother explaining why Ceres and other Tennyos do what they do makes Ceres seem…"

"Less moral…and less than humane?"

"I don't know about humane. Humanity has always been defined by being human. But I can accept her lack of morality. Amoral if not immoral."

"And immoral if not amoral. But she follows what science refers to as biological drives, something that Frenzia couldn't do because she had…and still has…morals."

"Frenzia believes that if you love someone deeply, you need to stay devoted to them, no matter what. So when she lost her spouse, she accepted her status as a widow. She wouldn't even have any other children with someone else like they never existed."

"And that's why the other Tennyo looked down upon her. Because she wouldn't follow biological drives over free will and the power of choice. She only had one love…and wouldn't settle for a new one."

The dead Shinji then got off the rock and stood in front of the living doppelganger from another world.

"You wanted to ask me something," the live one spoke up.

"Yes, I did," the dead one responded. "I needed to… I wanted…to say good-bye to Asuka properly because I never did so last year."

The living Shinji then, against his conscience, thought of one of the other Shinji's more private memories of himself with the red-eyed redhead.

"Not like that, Shinji," the dead boy expressed; he knew his living counterpart had fantasized about one of his more private moments with Asuka. "That's never a good way to say good-bye, even if it's with someone you love."

"Sorry."

"Please, don't be. Still, the request I'm asking of you is a large one."

And Shinji knew what the request was.

-x-

"…Major Katsuragi and Asuka and Rei spend a lot of time with that mirror, Dr. Akagi," went Maya to her mentor as they worked on restoring order to NERV HQ. "Do you know why?"

"That mirror serves as a sort of window wherever the Third Child is after the Twelfth Angel incident," she explained, really just wanting to forget about the mirror and the boy, since there was no way to travel between different dimensions. "Apparently, he's under a new obligation."

In addition to transferring the MAGI to the secondary command center, the damaged Evas were being examined to confirm how much time would be needed to repair. So far, Unit-00 suffered more than Unit-02 had in the last battle with a damaged head and seared body while the red behemoth lost both arms and head. With Unit-01 being the only Eva left that could defend against the Angels should they attack again.

Fuyutsuki returned to the room where the mirror was left, and found Major Katsuragi and the First and Second Children gathered around said mirror, looking saddened.

"What did I miss?" He asked them.

Misato looked up at him and responded, "A heartfelt parting between a ghost and his lover."

To be continued…

A/N: Seriously, why can't you people just leave reviews?


	10. Deviation, Part Seven: Love's Parting

Creation began on 02-10-16

Creation ended on 02-21-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Deviation, Part Seven/Love's Parting

A/N: To those that don't understand, the Asuka of the Ceres universe will get a proper parting from the Shinji of that same universe with aid from the Shinji of the Eva universe.

Asuka Soryu-Ayanami couldn't remember what had happened the last time she was conscious, but the sight of a sleeping Shinji beside her in his bed made it hard for her to remember anything. Was she talking to Yui about a woman named Frenzia, who know about another woman named Ceres? Wasn't Shinji dead and had been for a year? That couldn't be right, he was right beside her in his bed. She was even sure that they had made love because she felt exhausted.

Raising her right hand to caress his sleeping face, she smiled at him.

"Asuka…" She heard a voice call out to her. "Asuka…Asuka…"

"Huh?!" The red-eyed redhead gasped, now finding herself in a hospital hallway with Yui. "What?"

"I was just saying that you should go get some sleep," Yui told her. "You were unresponsive for a moment there."

"Oh… I'm sorry, I guess I…slipped into a daydream," the girl told her. _I thought it was all real. It felt real. I touched his face._

"What was it about?"

"Flying in the moonlight."

"Precious."

Asuka then left her to retire to the hospital's waiting room where they had futons for people to crash and burn for a few hours (or days, depending on how much time you had to spend with people hospitalized at Magatama Memorial Hospital). She couldn't really share with Yui that her daydream was really about her intimacy with Shinji, like his suicide was never a fact, that it was just an illusion. Her heart had left her feeling deceived…but only because she still loved him. And then, there was this outsider Shinji that was similar in appearance to her dead lover, but was different in both past and soul.

 _This is torture enough without having a boy from another world,_ she thought.

Entering the room, she found everyone else she'd seen today on some of the futons, some trying to sleep while the others were still awake.

"I take it some of us won't be sleeping well tonight," she told them.

"You'd be right," Aya responded.

"Still…your brother is alright, so that must count for something…even if it's small."

"Yeah… But with the return of Aki, I fear things are going to get worse than before."

Asuka took an empty futon near Aya and Toya, and uttered, "How can things be worse than before?"

"If the Progenitor's gone, the rest of Mikage International, meaning Kagami, will be after Ceres with greater interest." Toya explained.

"I mean you no disrespect, Ms. Mikage, but I think with after what happened today, I'd be less interested in Ceres and more interested in Shinji and Frenzia. Whoever this Kagami is, he can obsess over Ceres all he wants to, but she's got nothing compared to the Tennyo of the Ikari family."

"No disrespect taken. Frenzia was more forthcoming than Ceres has been."

-x-

"…You want to use my body in order to say good-bye to Asuka?" Shinji responded to his deceased counterpart of this world in the dream world.

"I only told her that I loved her before I died," the dead Shinji told him. "It wasn't exactly saying good-bye. There's not much hope at all for a suicide, but I want to at least let her know from me that she's still the most important person to me, in life and in death."

Shinji recalled the last time his deceased self ever saw his girlfriend alive. It was after they had made love when the Rage-filled Anchor took over him…and he had hurt her against his will. And that's why he killed himself.

"And she deserves to hear it from the man she loves himself," he told him.

"Five minutes to say good-bye to her is all I ask."

"Do what you need to do."

-x-

Kagami was getting concerned now. He hadn't heard from the men charged with keeping watch over the Progenitor and helping to bring in Shinji and Aya. If anything were to happen to the Progenitor, then he'd be unable to ascertain where he had hidden Ceres' hagoromo and use it for the C-Genome project.

-x-

The next day, upon waking up to the smell of coffee, Asuka, after eating the available breakfast, decided that today was another day she would forget about school and make an excuse to why she skipped again.

"Um, Asuka," went Aya to her, "the Ikari ladies were with Shinji earlier, and explained to me that he needed to see you soon."

"Why?" She asked her.

"They wouldn't say, but Shinji made it seem like something important to you."

And with that, Asuka went down to the psyche ward where Shinji was confined.

Yui and Anzu were standing in front of the cell he was in, and Asuka greeted them.

"I was told that Shinji needed to see me?" She asked them.

"Yeah," Yui expressed. "It's complicated, but you should be able to converse with him in private."

 _Why would I need to speak with him in private?_ She wondered to herself.

She entered the cell and found Shinji sitting against one side of the padded wall. For some strange reason, he looked different than he did last night. He looked less…timid or insecure, more assertive or capable of doing something.

"Hey, Asuka," he greeted her, and she recognized his tone as one she hadn't heard in a year. "I only have five minutes, so I need every second to speak with you."

"Shinji?" She spoke. "You're speaking through Shinji?"

"It's temporary. It turns out that Shinji from another world isn't a tough guy. He is a softer soul than anything I could've been."

And somehow, Asuka could see the other Shinji keeping a man that was covered in scars similar to those that Aya's brother once had, showing an unhappy expression and seeming unsure of just how to deal with Ceres' corrupted spouse.

"I asked to use his body to do something I didn't say before I died," he told her. "I needed to say good-bye to you, Asuka."

She felt saddened by this discovery.

"I don't know what will become of me after this, but I'll probably reside within Shinji's soul until I move on. Beyond that, I stay to help him for as long as I can with keeping Ceres' spouse in check so that he can't harm anyone. So, I will say all that I need to say to you right now."

Asuka reached out and held his hands. They looked like his hands, even though they were really the other Shinji's, just looking like his for a while.

"I am sorry that I hurt you that day. I never meant to leave you like that when I decided to end my life to save yours from being ended. I still love you, and your love helps me get through my agony."

 _Sometimes, his words can be all jumbled when he tries to say what he means,_ she thought, and let go of his hands and just held him in her arms. _If I could've, I would've joined him wherever he went. But he wouldn't let me do that. He didn't want either of us going out like Romeo and Juliet. But I couldn't move on after he died. He was my first and only._

"Asuka, I don't want you to feel bound by me," Shinji told her, unable to hold her because of the cuffs keeping his hands in check.

"What?" She asked him.

"I want you to enjoy your life, and you can't do that with me weighing you down."

"How can I enjoy life…without you in it?"

"You simply look elsewhere…and…there's no harm or shame in being with someone else."

She let go of him and looked him in the eye.

"I'd be cheating on you if I ever did that," she told him. "You were my first, and who'd want to be with me…like that?"

Shinji gave her a stern look and it broke with a small chuckle; there were times when he tried to show that he was capable of being tough on his own accord, but it was useless around her.

"You're more than a pretty face, you know," he told her. "If I asked him to, he'd probably go out on a date with you."

"Not who you're suggesting. What would he see in someone like me?"

"We both know that he sees you differently from the way he saw her. You're not her…and you'll never be her."

"She would always yell at him, like everything he did was wrong. And…he doesn't look at me that way. It's like, he sees me as being off-limits."

"That's only because he's lived one life where he knows you as a completely different person. He's seen my memories, my past, and sees you as someone different from the other one. He sees you, he sees kindness and someone that won't hide their feelings. He saw her…and saw someone that used aggression as a means to interact with those around her."

"That's like a femme fatale. And…she hadn't done anything but demean him more than half the time when she wasn't hitting him. But…why would you want me to be with him like that? I mean, I don't even… Could he ever…with someone like me?"

"If you let him, if you allow for him to decide on his own."

-x-

"…I will find Ceres and make her mine again! Do you hear me, boy?!" The Progenitor shouted at Shinji as he sat beside the rock with him.

But Shinji ignored him to the best of his ability and pondered on how the power Ceres gave him had corrupted him to such depths.

"Excuse, Mikagi," he then heard the voice of Frenzia, and saw him beside the rock, in front of the Progenitor. "Why are you shouting at a young man that changed fate by saving the life of another young man you were going to destroy with your obsession? You need to let go and move on. If you persist in your obsession, there will be no hope for you to move on."

"Never! Ceres is mine! I will never let her go!"

Frenzia looked over at Shinji and sighed.

"I do apologize for you having to put up with watching him," she told him.

"It's okay, I'm used to it," he responded to her.

"Is there anything you're not used to?"

"Release me from my bindings, woman!" The Progenitor demanded of Frenzia.

"I hope you can forgive me for my transgression, Shinji," she uttered to the boy, and then kicked the Progenitor in his face.

"Ugh," Shinji shuddered as the guy was knocked out.

"Sorry about that," she apologized again.

"You're starting to remind me of myself," he told her. "Asuka… I mean, the one I knew back in the other world, she would always say that I'm always doing that."

"I've explored your past and seen your interactions with this Asuka Langley Soryu. That's merely how you cope with your life. You're introverted, the opposite of people like this girl, who is extroverted. You're an internal soul and she's an external soul. It wouldn't be uncommon for any two people to ever attempt to understand one another."

"So I don't like conflicts. I wouldn't have minded if she could've understood that."

"She represses her problems by invading the personal spaces of those around her. She has a desperate need to be seen and heard, hoping that by doing anything to get noticed by others will throw her own pain away. But you cannot undo one's pain by trying to run from it. There are simply some demons you can't outrun, no matter how hard you try."

"So…what would likely become of her, then?"

"If she can't face her past and accept it for what it is, in all of its aspects associated with her? A brutal retribution is all that will await her at the end of her road."

"Brutal retribution?"

"Unending agony…and endless suffering."

Shinji was unsure if he could even picture the Asuka he knew suffering like that. He just hated seeing anyone suffer.

"But people can change if they allow themselves to," Frenzia informed. "You can't force someone to change for you. They have to change on their own accord. To force them is to admit that you refuse to understand them or yourself at all."

"Which would make you no different from a puppet master," he added.

"I was expecting you to say that you're no different from a tyrant, but that works, too."

She then sat in front of him; that way, she could watch the Progenitor in case he tried to come to.

"Were you able to figure out where he hid Ceres' hagoromo?" Shinji asked her, hoping to change the subject to one where he could help Aya further and free her from the bane of her family's history.

"Even with Mikagi here, he's a stubborn man," she expressed, referring to the Progenitor.

"Mikagi? As in Mikage? Aya's family?"

"That's right. His presence within your soul doesn't change his ability to keep secrets from either of us. But one memory relating to the hagoromo stands out every time I try to pierce through the veil of his damaged consciousness. He's on a boat surrounded by water…and I see him disposing of what must be Ceres' hagoromo into the water."

"So, it's possible that he threw her robe out into the sea?"

"Robe?"

"That's what the hagoromo is."

Frenzia then realized something even more severe than what Ceres had done to Mikagi.

"Ceres, you'll be the death of everyone," she uttered.

"Huh?"

"Shinji, there's a lot about celestial hagoromo that none of you were made aware of by Ceres. While they may appear as robes of a sort of garment in your myths and legends, when separated from their owners, they don't take the appearance of any garment. They appear as this."

She held out her hands, and something appeared above them.

Shinji covered his eyes for a moment, but the light that formed in front of the two faded, revealing something that he had never seen before. It looked like…some sort of crystal, but it pulsated like it was a heart beating. There were these strange, vein-like surroundings and a glow all around it.

"This, Shinji, is what a celestial hagoromo is supposed to look like when separated from its celestial owner," she told him. "This is the form a hagoromo takes when separated from its owner. It is referred to as mana when in this form, and when worn by its owner or someone associated to the original owner, it changes form. It can either appear as something like this (her very clothing changed in front of Shinji, turning into something similar to what he had seen Ceres wearing in his perceptions of the future, only not as revealing as the one he saw)…or even something like this, depending on the wearer (her form changed again, appearing as a feathery dress with jewels and her skin covered in strange markings). I can't believe that Ceres didn't tell any of you, and she's the one that wants her hagoromo back to depart from this world."

Shinji couldn't believe this, either.

"Thank you for clarifying this, Frenzia," he praised her. "Something I shall inform Aya and the others of when I see them later. Although, this will make trying to find it even more difficult."

"Maybe not, Shinji," she told him. "As I said before, there's a lot about mana that you don't know about. In addition to being worn by the Tennyo, they're as organic as we are. They can think for themselves, following a basic series of drives to survive. Depending on how good their ability that is to adapt to their surroundings, a hagoromo will assume forms adjusted to mobility, even taking it upon themselves to become something entirely unlike what it used to be in order to carry out its greatest urge, which is to return to its owner. If Mikagi did throw Ceres' hagoromo into the sea, it was a long time ago, and I can guarantee you that you won't find it in the sea, no matter how hard you look…because it's not there, anymore."

"But…if it's not there, anymore…then where could it be?"

"It's just a theory, but have you or anyone else, for that matter, encountered any creatures or people that have done things that shouldn't be possible? A creature that shouldn't be capable of flight suddenly flying? A creature that shouldn't survive underwater capable of doing so?"

"Nothing I've ever seen since I got here."

"Maybe not you, but what of Ms. Mikage or her brother and friends?"

-x-

"…I know this is my being selfish right now," went Asuka, shortly after taking a risk and kissing the man she loved dearly on his lips, "but, please, don't leave me alone so soon."

"I am sorry, Asuka," Shinji told her, never realizing that it would hurt her this much to part with her again. "But I'll always be near. You'll always find me in your heart…and in him."

Knowing that they were down to their final seconds, Asuka embraced him, crying as he was going to leave again.

"Good-bye, Shinji," she sobbed.

"Good-bye, Asuka," he responded, his voice fading away.

And then, she knew she wasn't hugging her Shinji, anymore. She was just holding onto another Shinji that she barely knew from experience…but had seen from a window of his past.

"Asuka?" She heard him speak up.

"Please," she begged him, "don't speak right now. Please…just let me weep for a while."

Shinji might've felt uncomfortable by this, but because Asuka pleaded to him not to speak up, he obliged and allowed her to grieve over her parting with her dead lover on him. He felt the tears from her left eye falling onto his neck and back. The scent of her hair being a lingering sadness that had been mixed with a feeling of solace. He could even feel her heart beating under her dress.

"Thank you for letting me see him one last time," she praised him.

"You're welcome," he responded, and he felt her let go of him, allowing him to see her face, stained with tears and sadness.

-x-

"…He loves her," went Fuyutsuki, as he had seen the scene between the two Shinjis and the other world's Asuka replay itself in the mirror, "and he can't be with her, knowing that his life has ended long ago. So he tells her to move on."

"But she doesn't want to cheat on him, and he suggests that she try to care about him," said Asuka, touched by the other world's incarnation of her not wanting to betray her lover, even after he wanted her to feel love with someone new.

The mirror showed the red-eyed Asuka with a saddened face, and then showing her letting go of a restrained Shinji as she got up to leave the cell they were in.

" _Asuka,"_ they heard Shinji say to her. _"I… I hope that this…doesn't change anything between us. I mean, I… I want to be on good terms with you…if you'll let me."_

She turned to face him, and gave him a small smile and nodded in the positive.

" _Yeah, Shinji,"_ she responded to him. _"We're on good terms."_

"She loved him," said Misato, "but she doesn't love…him."

"She might love him…if she chooses to," went Rei.

-x-

"…Did you say good-bye to him, too?" Asuka asked Yui and Anzu in the bathroom, wiping her face with tissue.

"We did," Anzu answered her. "I didn't know it would be so hard, even though he was already dead."

"Even though his soul wanders within this other Shinji, he is really gone now," went Yui, unable to keep from crying again. "I feel so broken!"

Asuka knew what she meant by that. She felt it herself. She had felt this pain ever since her lover died in front of her, and now she felt it on a grander level because she had to part with him again, even though the parting wasn't as torturing for her now. It just made her love him more.

"Yui? What do you think of…this Shinji that's helping Aya and her friends?" She asked her.

To be continued…

A/N: I think it was quite a saddening scene where the red-eyed Asuka and Shinji have to part and know that, while his soul is still lingering, they can never be together, but Shinji tells her to move and not be bound to him forever. What did any of you think about it?


	11. Deviation, Part Eight: New Agenda

Creation began on 02-21-16

Creation ended on 03-07-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Deviation, Part Eight/New Agenda

A/N: I'd say that things are going to get more deviated now.

Aya, Aki, Toya and Yuuhi were upset right now. And they had good reason to be, too. Thanks to Shinji's new knowledge, provided to him by Frenzia herself, they knew what they were looking for, which Ceres hadn't informed them about at all, further emphasizing the Mikage Tennyo's uncooperative behavior with them. And Aya found her to be completely uncooperative, unlike Frenzia, who was being cooperative.

"The second we find Ceres' hagoromo…or mana or whatever it is," went Aya, "we make sure she gets it and leaves."

"Yeah," Aki agreed with his sister; the sooner they found Ceres' hagoromo, the better, and Aya and he could be rid of this madness in their family.

"We owe these two a lot," said Yuuhi, referring to Shinji and Frenzia for their reliability in the matter.

They were standing outside the cell Shinji was in, who, after being provided with a pencil and paper, drew a detailed picture of what the hagoromo looked like when separated from its owner, and relaying what Frenzia told him about what it could do when separated from its owner for a long time.

"I'm sorry," Shinji apologized to them.

"It's not your fault, Shinji," Aya assured him. "It's Ceres' fault. She's not telling us anything we need to know, anymore. It doesn't matter, anyway. Let her keep her secrets. Find her thing and be over and done with her."

Shinji knew that she was mad at Ceres for her unwillingness to cooperate with them now, and hoped that when they did find her hagoromo, Aya and the others would be free to live out their lives, no longer bound to this crazy fate. No matter what happened to himself, he wanted to ensure that no one else suffered because of their ancestral backgrounds.

"And she said that these are capable of turning into creatures by means of adapting to their environments?" Aki asked Shinji.

"That's what she told me," he answered. "So the Progenitor…or Mikagi as he was once known as, threw her mana in the ocean long ago…and it'll have adapted itself into a mobile form for the purpose of returning to her, but because of such an ability, it could be in any form."

"Like an animal?" Yuuhi asked.

"Or even a person."

-x-

"…He wanted you to move on?" Yui asked Asuka, as they were on the roof of the hospital where they could talk privately.

"He didn't want me to be bound by him simply because he died," Asuka explained her parting with Shinji. "Is it that wrong to want to stay true to him…even after he's gone…and he tells you to find love with someone else?"

"It's not wrong," Yui told her. "It's never wrong…if he himself tells you to find love with someone else. But…in the end, the choice is ultimately yours to make because it's your life, your love."

Asuka turned away from her on the bench and thought about the other Shinji whose past she saw as if she had been the one to experience it all.

"I do care for this other Shinji," she admitted to Yui, "but we've seen his lack of any meaningful relationships with people from his own world. I saw his world's version of myself, and she's someone I wouldn't want to be around at all…or end up being just like. She pinched his nose shut when she kissed him and nearly suffocated him… I mean, even she was beautiful…but that behavior, that attitude…"

"A vixen," Yui cut her off. "A harpy. Beautiful to look at…but dangerous to be around or get near, like a femme fatale luring men into inescapable danger."

"Yeah. If I reminded him of her, he'd probably live with the fear that I might try to hurt him for even the slightest thing he did…and he'd have every right to be afraid of me."

"But…he knows you're not her. And he's seen my son's memories of you to know that you're not that kind of person. Despite the ridicule and ill will of your past because people couldn't get around your eye color, you're not a violent woman."

"There have been moments," Asuka sighed, revealing a long-kept secret. "Just moments…where I have wanted to hurt someone that wouldn't overlook my eyes and see me as a person and not an omen of discord. I'm just as normal as any other girl with different-colored eyes."

"The whole myths and legends around red eyes is etched into people's fear of the unknown or unfamiliar. Personally, I don't believe in any of it."

-x-

Shinji kept expecting the corrupted soul of Mikagi to try and make himself known, but he felt fine since before his last meeting with Asuka. He focused on the other Shinji, needing to speak with him again, just to see what was going on within the confines of his own soul.

"You seem to have a lot on your mind to want to talk to me," he heard his deceased counterpart, seeing him on the rock with Mikagi laying on the ground, looking like he had been beaten to a bloody pulp. "When he's weaken, he can't voice his obsession for Ceres. And when he beaten, he can't make it seem like you've gone crazy."

"He's not…dead, is he?" Shinji asked him.

"He's like me; therefore, he is dead. Even the dead that are earthbound can still feel pain. It's a cruelty, to be harmed in excess…and be denied the peace that is supposed to come with death."

Shinji looked at Mikagi, almost feeling sympathy towards him, but only for the injuries he had sustained to keep him in check while he was a resident within his own soul. As much as he wanted to feel sorry for what Ceres did to him, he found it unlikely to do so without feeling the same degree of sympathy towards the other men that Ceres had manipulated to father her children.

"It's okay to feel sympathy for people, you know," the dead Shinji expressed. "One way or another, they were all victims. We're all victims of others."

"Yet Ceres feels nothing for them…or does she even feel at all?"

"It would depend upon your interpretation of feeling," Shinji heard Frenzia's voice, and saw her stepping out from behind a tree. "And, of course, engaging in another conversation with Ceres herself."

"But…surely as a parent, she feels some maternal attachment towards her children, right?" He asked her. "Even slightly?"

"I wouldn't be able to answer that," she told him, and walked over to the other Shinji and Mikagi, lowering to her knees and placing her left hand on Mikagi's face. "I can say this, however. While the Tennyo of the past committed themselves only to propagate with as many males as they could, my feelings toward this biological drive were of disgust. You shouldn't commit to something like that unless it's with someone you take the time to know and care about as a person, not a breeding tool. I let myself feel for others and achieved a substantial degree of enlightenment. I understand emotions like love and friendship…along with loss and grief."

Shinji looked away from her and said, "But Ceres…she seems to exhibit only anger…and her desire to have her hagoromo back in her possession, no matter what."

"And you don't want her desire to get back what's hers to endanger Aya Mikage and the others," Frenzia explained.

"Yes."

"She can bitch and moan about it all she wants to," said the dead Shinji, surprising the two of his choice of words to use about the Mikage Tennyo, "but if she gets it and leaves without harming anyone in the process, we should let the sleeping dogs lie when she departs."

"What do you mean by that?" Shinji asked him.

"As long as she doesn't do away with Ms. Mikage, her lover, her friends or Asuka and my relatives…OUR relatives, as they're as much your family as they were mine in life, Shinji, we can forget about her the second she gets it and leaves to wherever she wants to return home to."

Frenzia then looked back at the living Shinji and saw that he was unconvinced about something else that was in his mind.

"You fear the other relatives of Ceres' descendants continuing to harm others with a celestial background," she stated to him.

"Yeah," he nodded to her. "That's why I want to ask you something."

"Go ahead, though I already know what it is you're going to say."

"If Aya's relatives that want to exploit Ceres for reasons that endanger people…then someone should make them stop before they go any further than they already may have."

"Not someone, Shinji. You."

"Yeah, me."

"You're saying you want to stop Ms. Mikage's relatives from hurting more people with Tennyo blood in their veins, like a knight off to slay a dragon to rescue a princess…or princesses…if it means putting an end to what these people are doing?" The dead Shinji asked his live counterpart. "Can you add a selfish reason to why you want to do this?"

"Is this a selfish reason for you?" He asked back. "What if they know about your past relationship with Asuka? That you two were…very, very close? What's to keep them from coming after her like they tried to with me, thinking I was you when you were dead for a year?"

Frenzia looked over at her dead descendant and had to agree with his living counterpart that such a belief was within the realm of plausibility; she, too, had been aware of his relationship with the girl when he was alive and knew that, despite the unwanted rage that had coursed through him in life that forced him to end his life to preserve hers, he would've done anything to keep her safe from harm, no matter what price he himself had to pay a second time.

"You really think that these…Mikages that don't share Ms. Mikage's morals or her brother's wish for peace…will go after Asuka…just because of my past relationship with her…and who I died for…and would die for again…and again…and again?" He asked his living self.

"They might," Shinji answered him.

"Then that…will be among their greatest mistakes."

-x-

In the room, Misato put the down the mirror as it stopped showing Shinji engaged in conversation with this Frenzia and his deceased counterpart.

"I don't like where this is going," she told the others present.

"His dead self asked him for a selfish reason to do so, and he answered with his lover," Rei expressed.

"And he's right," added Asuka, ignoring her own dislike of the First Child. "What's to stop any of these people from going after her like they did for who they thought was someone they were looking for?"

Fuyutsuki then checked his watch and announced that it was getting past the hours where the skeleton crew worked.

Asuka yawned and picked up the mirror, which showed something new.

Shinji, still in his cell to keep from harming the others, with an angry expression.

" _I won't let you do this,"_ he uttered.

-x-

None of them expected to hear Shinji say this to them. It was mainly Aya who informed him of what they had suspected of what he had told them much earlier, but it was frightening of just thinking of it being so. After being told that Ceres' hagoromo could adapt and take on a mobile form for the purpose of returning itself to her, Aya and Yuuhi came to a conclusion that the hagoromo had to be close to them, based on something Yuuhi had once heard: _"Seen, but never seen. Protected, but unknown to its protector."_ But when they told Shinji, he showed his hesitance to believe this was so…that the hagoromo they had been trying to find for such a long while…was really Aya's lover, Toya.

It only just occurred to them that during the time the guy was injured, he recovered from his injuries, but they realized that he had recovered much faster than usual. And then it occurred to Toya himself that he wasn't normal…when he explained what he had saw of himself when he saw one of his hands changed when he and Aya were on a beach a while ago.

"Shinji, it's the only explanation we were able to come to," Aya told him.

"That doesn't necessarily mean that it'll end with a positive outcome," Shinji responded; in truth, he was just afraid for them, because even if it was true, he saw Toya as a person and not as a form for the hagoromo to take on just to return to Ceres. "We don't really know what could happen if you're right…or what could happen to him if Ceres does reclaim her hagoromo."

"But…this is what we're trying to do, right?" Toya asked him. "It's…all that matters? If we find her hagoromo, we're free of her. She leaves and…"

"Please…don't think about it until we know for sure what could happen," Shinji pleaded to them.

-x-

"…I take it Shinji wasn't too happy with what you discovered?" Yui asked Aya and Aki, seeing them on the hospital roof.

"He doesn't want Toya to do anything until we're for sure nothing we don't expect to happen won't happen," Aki explained.

"Personally, I don't blame him for being cautious," Yui told the twins. "He is a very quiet person and longs for peace, not sadness. Aya, you saw his past, so you know this is true. You know what he fears could happen if you're right."

Aya turned to face her…and then nodded in acceptance to what the older woman was really saying.

"He doesn't want anyone to die, anymore," she sighed.

-x-

Asuka wandered down the halls to Shinji's cell again and found him crouched against one of the padded walls, looking depressed and upset about something.

 _What are you thinking about?_ She wondered, placing her left hand on the glass. _Who are you thinking about? Why are you thinking about them?_

In his cell, within his mind, Shinji was trying to get back in touch with Frenzia to ask her a serious question about the fate of anything made by a hagoromo.

 _Frenzia_ _…_ _Frenzia_ _…_ _Frenzia, I need to talk to you!_ His mind yelled out to her as he returned to the realm where his dead counterpart was with the unconscious Mikage patriarch.

"You're getting better at this," the dead Shinji expressed.

"Thank you. Is Frenzia here?" He asked.

"I am always here," Frenzia answered for herself, appearing behind him.

"Frenzia… Ceres' hagoromo… Toya…"

"Calm yourself," Frenzia calmed him because he was babbling. "What are you trying to say?"

"Ceres' hagoromo… Aya and the others… They think her hagoromo is in Toya, Aya's lover," he explained to her. "Suppose the hagoromo could assume a human form so that it could get back to the Tennyo that was separated from it. What happens to the human when the hagoromo is returned? I mean, what really happens to them?"

Frenzia was at a loss for the words to answer him.

"I honestly don't know," she told him. "I've never truly known of any humans created by a hagoromo, but if they were created solely to return the mana to the Tennyo, then they will have done just that."

"You mean…people made by mana…exist only to return it to their owners…and nothing else beyond that task?"

"That is…what the mana will have decided upon when its construct was created to return it to its owner. Nothing more, nothing less."

"So, then if Toya is just a construct for the mana of Ceres to be returned to…and he does what he was meant to do…he will just die?"

"If he is…then yes, Shinji. He will die if he does return Ceres' mana to her."

"But then… Is there any way to save him if he is and does this? I mean, even if he is a creation of the mana, he is still a person and deserves to be with Aya."

"If mana can be made to do so, it can give him the normal lifespan of a human."

"But… But she might not care what happens to him. Ceres may not care for what happens to Aya's feelings if Toya dies. I…I know I said that I would help Aya find her hagoromo and return it to Ceres, but not like this. Not like this, Frenzia."

Frenzia walked closer to him and placed her palms on his shoulders.

"If you have mana, you can do what Ceres may not do," she told him. "If you have mana…you can save lives, Shinji."

"Me? But…"

"The Rage-filled Anchor was transferred to you, which makes you a part of my family's lineage. It also means you can inherit my mana, which I made accessible to those of my bloodline if they were able to obtain it."

"But…none of your descendants have ever been able to obtain it…and for different reasons. How can I expect to succeed where they failed?"

"By knowing the difference between being who you know you are meant to be…and being what others want you to be."

"Being who you're meant to be…and what others want you to be," the dead Shinji repeated. "It revolves around want and need, Shinji. Want and need."

-x-

Toya was convinced that he was Ceres' hagoromo now. He believed this because had just stabbed himself in his left hand with his stiletto dagger in the men's restroom…and the stab wound regenerated. He was the hagoromo Ceres needed to leave this world. But Shinji urged him and the others not to give it to Ceres just yet, wanting to make absolutely certain that nothing would happen to him when and if they returned to her.

" _Please…don't think about it until we know for sure what could happen,"_ he recalled Shinji's worried plea to them. _"Please."_

-x-

 _If you've found it, why can't I have it back?_ Ceres asked Aya, looking at her through the mirror of the women's restroom, engaged in a conversation with her present reincarnation.

 _We just need to be sure of something,_ Aya told her. _Shinji wants to make sure of something._

But Ceres wasn't convinced.

 _He wants it for himself, doesn't he?_ She asked her, which didn't even sound like a question at all. _He wants my hagoromo._

Aya had seen this side of Ceres before, but this was new, a rage directed at Shinji, who merely wanted to make sure that Toya wouldn't die if he returned what was Ceres' back to her.

 _He doesn't want your hagoromo, Ceres,_ she told her. _He wants to make sure nothing bad will happen should you reclaim it._

 _What could possibly happen that is bad?_

 _Someone dying._

 _And that should matter to me because why?_

Now Aya was offended by her question.

 _We're waiting until we know for sure,_ she told her. _You'll have to be patient._

But before Ceres could respond that she wouldn't, Aya walked away, leaving the Tennyo in the mirror with an enraged expression.

Outside the bathroom, Aya met with Asuka, who had been informed about what was going on, and who uttered to the older girl, "I take it that she's not happy to be informed that she would have to wait a while longer?"

"I don't believe she even cares what could happen if she does get it back," Aya told her. "I told her that someone could die…and she asked why that should matter to her."

Asuka frowned at this discovery.

"Where does she get off asking such a thing?" She questioned. "I can understand that she's your ancestress and everything, but who does she think she is? Does she think of herself as the very sun itself? That we revolve around her?"

Aya was unable to answer that question, simply because she didn't know how to answer it.

"No," Asuka spoke up, still upset about Ceres' response to this discovery. "No, she must be like the moon to behave this way towards everyone around her."

"Asuka?"

"She must be, right? I mean, she's barely hanging on without her hagoromo and wants it back so much that she's willing to do whatever she feels she has to in order to reclaim what belongs to her, no matter who it hurts."

As much as Aya wanted to say that there was a different reason for Ceres' behavior towards the choice to not let her have back her hagoromo just yet, she couldn't disagree with this young girl's belief that Ceres was someone that was barely hanging on. But so long as she did hold on…and withhold many answers to many questions they needed answers to, Ceres seemed to have a lot of life left in her.

"Then…you agree with Shinji's suggestion on what to do until we know for sure that nothing bad will happen to Toya?" She asked her.

Asuka sighed and answered, "Well, yeah. I mean, don't you?"

"Yes, I do. As odd as it seems, I'm starting to believe in Shinji more than I tried to believe in Ceres. He saw my future the moment I touched him…and he informed me of what he saw. He never withheld anything from me. And then, I saw his past…and felt his pain."

"He's not a fan of pain, whether it's inflicted upon him or not."

They then returned to where Shinji was held, but stopped walking at the sight of what had to be frightening at the moment.

Shinji, without any form of restraints, stepping out of his cell, turning to face them.

"The door was unlocked," he explained, pointing to the cell door. "Are you two alright?"

"We're fine," went Asuka. "What of you?"

"After another conversation with Frenzia, my spirits have been lifted a little. Not a whole lot, but at least enough."

"Was she able to tell you something about saving Toya?" Aya asked him, wanting to be hopeful.

"Yeah. She told me that Tennyo with mana could give a human made by mana the lifespan of a normal human. Except she's never known of anyone human that was made by mana before."

"So…if we convince Ceres to do so, then Toya will live."

"Yeah…if she can be convinced. If she can't, then it'll have to be done by someone else who has access to mana."

Aya sighed at what he meant by that last statement. There was very little chance that Ceres would even consider doing this; all she wanted was her hagoromo so that she could leave this world.

"Could Frenzia do it?" Asuka asked Shinji. "She's a Tennyo, so she has her own hagoromo, right?"

"I asked her, but she said she couldn't because she's not alive, anymore. She also made it so that her mana was accessible to her descendants that managed to inherit it." Shinji explained.

"But…you're from another world, Shinji," Aya stated. "How…"

"The Rage-filled Anchor," he explained. "It transferred to me, which makes me a part of her bloodline, her lineage. But I've yet to inherit her mana. I don't know if I'll ever."

"You could inherit her mana?" Asuka asked him. "That's…a rather scary thought."

-x-

 _"That's_ _…_ _a rather scary thought."_ Asuka heard her red-eyed counterpart say to Shinji through the mirror, responding to what Shinji had revealed to her.

"A very scary thought," she uttered to herself.

"Shinji inheriting something from a mysterious woman that happens to be a celestial matriarch for that world's version of the Ikari family?" Misato expressed. "That would be…incredible. He'd be able to do…anything he wanted."

"He'd be like a god," added Rei.

 _Yes, he would be like a god,_ thought Fuyutsuki, but for a completely different reason. _A god_ _…_ _free from the Eva. Free from anyone's control. Free_ _…_ _from the fate he was originally dealt._

-x-

"…So long as the Progenitor…or Mikagi, as he was once known as, remains unconscious and bound, he's not a threat or hazard, which would make me a threat or hazard," Shinji explained to Aya and Asuka, feeling the warmth of the sunlight on his skin on the roof of the hospital.

Asuka stood two feet from him against the railing, looking out at the ocean water below them.

"So…what happens now?" She asked him.

He looked over at her on his left…and then to Aya on his right.

"I want to deal with Mikage International," he revealed to them, "but before I do that, there's one last thing I want to do that involves our uncooperative Tennyo."

"What do you want with Ceres?" Aya asked him.

"Her mana, her choice. I want to talk to her again, see if I can convince her to let Toya live normally when she gets her mana back."

"She thinks you want it all for yourself."

"She'd be wrong to think that, just as she can be wrong to that everything revolves around her. She can be…so wrong because of her beliefs, her bias, her…"

"Her secrets and unwillingness to admit to her faults?" Aya cut him off.

"Yes. But maybe if I talk to her, try to convince her to let Toya live… Maybe she'll feel something for once that isn't a biological drive or a selfish belief."

"You may have a problem with that idea, Shinji. Ceres is so…uncooperative right now that she won't talk to you, no matter how civil you try to be with her."

Shinji sighed and expressed, "Then I'll have to be anything but civil towards her. She won't talk to me, I'll make her talk to me."

"I hope you know what you're doing. She's not easy to talk to."

"Is anyone ever easy to talk to?"

To be continued…

A/N: Ooh…this is getting intense. Who do you think will prevail in a verbal battle between Shinji and Ceres? Will it be Shinji, a boy trying to find his way in a different place that is unlike the one he knew…or Ceres, the Tennyo that refuses to admit her faults and wants back her hagoromo?


	12. Heart full of Hope, Soul of Salvage

Creation began on 03-07-16

Creation ended on 03-19-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Heart full of Hope, Soul of Salvage

A/N: Here it goes. Shinji talks to Ceres.

This was a first for Ceres, finding herself in a misty forest with lanterns adorning the branches in the path of a road that led down one way and another way. It was against her volition to be here, but now here she was.

"Ceres," she turned to her left and saw the boy that she convinced herself into believing wanted her hagoromo for himself. "I really need to talk to you."

"Says the young man that dares to be like the gods themselves," she responded, which made Shinji feel disrespected by her. "There is nothing to say."

"Yes, there is, Ceres," he told her, just as she tried to walk away…and he appeared in front of her. "Toya, Aya's lover. His existence is sustained by your hagoromo. So long as he has it, he lives. But him possessing it complicates things that don't need to be complicated."

"He has what is mine. I want it back so that I may leave this awful realm."

"Which is why I'm here right now. You want it back, I want you to have it back so that the Mikages will stop trying to get Aya because of their obsession with you, but I don't want any more people to die."

"People will always long for immortality."

"Not immortality. Just a right to life."

"Either way, it seems very selfish."

"Ceres…all I want right this moment…is to ask you if you will do just one thing that I'm going to say. I won't force the issue any further than I have to. I was told that mana could give people a normal lifespan if they were made by mana. Will you give Toya the lifespan of a normal human if it means being given your mana back?"

"Why would I do that?" Ceres asked him. "If he's no longer around, you'd be down a man for Aya's affections. Isn't that what this is really about?"

Shinji balled his fists for a moment, but then calmed himself and opened his hands while keeping them at his sides.

"You can say what you want, but my relationship with Aya will always be that of a friend," he told her. "I don't want her as anything beyond that of a friend. She has Toya. She loves him, not me, and I will not get in between what they have. What they have, that's love, something I might not never know anything about because I've never met the one for me. And maybe it's something you've never tried to understand because you're obsessed with wanting back what's yours and not caring who gets hurt in the process. Why must you be this way? It's either your hagoromo or your bias with men. Heh, even your actions which resulted in your spouse ending up becoming the deranged man that he is, which you seem to refuse to take responsibility for. Aren't you even the least bit concerned that Aya might be heartbroken if Toya dies the moment he gives you your mana back?"

"Men are expendable. I've seen many of them."

"Ceres, that's… Are you even…" Shinji tried to speak up, but then lost his cool. "Could you just shut the Hell up with your pathetic, selfish and biased beliefs and speak to me like a normal person?!"

Now Ceres was the one that felt intimidated by this young boy, and all he did was raise his voice.

"You can believe all you want that men are expendable just because you've either seen or even seduced some in your questionable past, but times have changed. I don't know for myself how much has changed because I've lived an isolated life because of no adult figures that bothered to teach me anything, but a lot has changed. Relationships have been refined. Women can choose who they love just as much as men can choose who they want to obsess over. Your bias is just like you right now, Ceres: Outdated! You can't hold onto an old belief forever…just like you can't deny your faults forever, no matter how old you are or whatever it is that you say are, a child of the gods or a goddess. And all I've done since I've met you that day in the garden is put up with you, and all I did right now was ask you a simple question, which deserves a simple answer. But you're evading the answer by saying that I have competition for Ms. Mikage's affections, which I don't because I don't love her. And she doesn't love me. She loves Toya, and he deserves a life with her. Now, I'll ask you again. If you get your mana back…will you let Toya live a human life with Aya?"

-x-

"…I didn't think Shinji would be able to use the Rage-filled Anchor to engage in a conversation with Ceres like he could with Frenzia or his deceased counterpart," Aya told Toya as they saw Shinji's body wrapped in a large, green, translucent sphere that looked like it had been made of water.

Shinji had lain down on one of the benches on the hospital rooftop, and was being watched over by the couple, Aki, Yuuhi and Anzu.

Aya didn't feel Ceres' presence within her, but felt a slight emptiness that was likely because of Ceres' current conversation with Shinji within the sphere.

"You think Shinji will be able to convince her to do it?" Yuuhi asked Aya and Anzu.

"I honestly don't know," Aya responded.

"If he can, it will be a great thing he's done to help you," Anzu expressed her opinion.

"Yeah," Aya agreed with her.

Suddenly, the sphere disappeared and Shinji awoke. He got up and looked at them…and then lowered his head in disappointment.

"Shinji?" Aki asked. "What happened?"

"I asked Ceres if she would let Toya live if it meant getting back her mana," he stated to them, "but she went and questioned my nonexistent, romantic affections for Ms. Mikage, and then says that men are expendable from her point of view. I asked her to speak with me like a normal person without being selfish or biased and told her that relationships between people have changed over time and that her bias was just as outdated as she was. I got angry with her, and explained that there's no romantic feelings between Aya and I, and then I asked her again if she would let Toya live if it meant getting back her mana so she could leave."

Aya raised her left hand onto his right shoulder, being sympathetic.

"She refused, didn't she?" She asked him.

"Yeah," he sighed his answer. "I am sorry, Aya. I thought I could get her to feel something that wasn't obsession or bias, that she could feel like everyone else."

"You tried, and that's all that matters," went Aki to him. "So…what happens now?"

Shinji calmly removed Aya's hand and responded, "Since she refused to be reasonable, I told her that she would have to wait until Toya's life was preserved to have her mana back."

"I take it that she was yelling that she wouldn't wait?" Aya asked him.

"She told me I was no better than Mikagi, that I'm just as judgmental as Frenzia. I merely told her that I don't want anyone else to suffer. She claims I want her mana for myself. I tell her that isn't true. Even if it were, what good is her mana…if it's not used to save people you want to see smile?"

"A person that has known power all their life…starts to lose respect for what it can be used for," went Anzu, "but a weak person that has never had power…knows its true value…and knows compassion."

Shinji looked at her with a confused look on his face.

"Frenzia once said that," he expressed. "Frenzia once stated that same thing. But she didn't say 'compassion'. She said that a weak person knows how to feel for those around them."

-x-

"…I'm actually surprised that they didn't try to steal anything from here," said Yui to Asuka as they returned to the Ikari estate.

"I don't think they'd ever want anything from here, Ms. Ikari," went Asuka as she stepped into Shinji's room, looking down at his bed. "They were only after Shinji, not a material possession."

She sighed as she sat on the mattress. While the intention of coming back here was to get clothes for the Shinji from another dimension, Asuka was still reflecting upon her memories with her dead lover.

"Which shirt do you think we should get for him?" She heard Yui ask her, and she turned to face her.

"Um…perhaps the green and purple one…or just a plain shirt from his uniform."

Yui opened the door to Shinji's closet and pulled out a shirt belonging to her son's uniform attire. Something fell out from between one of the other clothes and she picked it up. It was a picture of Asuka…caught in an embarrassing moment.

"Did Shinji take this picture of you?" She asked Asuka, who came over and saw the picture.

"It was the night of the summer festival," she explained. "Rei used his camera I was borrowing from Shinji and caught me changing into my yukata. I returned it to him at the festival and we had the film developed. I always thought he disposed of the photo. I wonder why he didn't?"

"Knowing my son, he likely cares about every moment you have. That's why he didn't throw the picture away."

Yui offered her the photo back, but Asuka declined.

"It's one of my most embarrassing moments that I don't need kept in a box in my room," she explained, and then grabbed a pair of black pants. "I don't think I've ever seen Shinji wear his uniform more than eight times when we were in school. Not that there was a dress code being enforced by the teachers; the students were allowed to express themselves so long as they didn't wear anything provocative."

"Provocative, as in no short-shorts, no short skirts, no shirts with gang signs or reveals an extensive amount of cleavage?"

"That's right."

They both looked at the selection of clothing picked out, and, due to their recollection of the other Shinji's past, noticed that the selection mirrored the boy's uniform from his own dimension.

"We should probably get him a different selection of shirts if he doesn't want to wear the same thing…or as close to the same thing." Asuka suggested, picking out a different shirt.

"Yeah," Yui agreed, taking out another shirt with power symbol on it.

-x-

Shinji hated his inability to convince Ceres to do one simple act of kindness. As much as he wanted to help her depart from this world, he felt disgust over the woman's terrible attitude and bias towards men. All he did was ask her if she would do one thing, just one thing, and she refused without even considering that there would be people that were grateful to her. He had to view her as being a completely cold-hearted woman that didn't care about anyone, no matter who they were.

It was why he made the choice to try and inherit Frenzia's mana to do what Ceres wouldn't do. He would try to save Toya's life so that they could all be rid of Ceres. There didn't need to be any selfishness or greed, just selflessness. He wanted to be compassionate and not a cruel person.

 _If anything, Ceres is no better than any other person with an attitude problem towards everyone,_ he thought as stood on the hospital roof and held onto the railing. _She won't be reasonable or feel anything for anyone. Not Even Aya's happiness matters to her. She thinks I want her mana and Aya for myself when I don't want them. Is it that wrong to want someone to live and be happy? Why am I asking myself that question when I already know the answer to it?_

"Shinji?" He heard Toya say to him from behind, and he turned to face him.

"Hey, Toya," he greeted the older man who wasn't really as old as any of them were. "How are you?"

"I am fine," he expressed. "Shinji, I've spoken with Aya about Ceres' hagoromo and…"

"Please, don't finish what you're trying to say to me."

"Even Aya is against the idea."

"If you give up the hagoromo, you could die instantly. There's been enough death going on, Toya."

"If my death frees Aya from Ceres, should it truly matter?"

"Of course, it would matter. Everyone that knew you would be devastated by your death, especially Aya. She would be devastated the most. It…it could crush her."

"Then…I must put my faith in you, just as she does, that you'll be able to save me so that I can be with her for many years to come."

Shinji sighed and expressed his gratitude in having him put his faith in him.

"If it were possible to do, I'd give you half my life if I could live to be eighty," Shinji told him.

-x-

"…So Ceres refused?" Yui asked Aya as she and Asuka returned to the hospital with a change of clothes for Shinji.

"She won't let Toya live," Aya explained to the two the repercussions of Ceres' decision to deny Toya a normal lifespan. "So she has to wait until his life is preserved before she can have her hagoromo back."

"Something tells me she's not the patient type," went Asuka, "that patience isn't one of her virtues."

"It's only because Shinji doesn't want anyone else to die because of her."

"He's trying to be a selfless person," went Yui in understanding of the situation. "If trying to keep someone alive, with nothing to be gained for one's own benefit, makes you selfish, then maybe it's a different form of selflessness."

-x-

"…I don't remember him being this bound the last time I saw him here," Shinji told his deceased counterpart and Frenzia in the spiritual confines of his mind, seeing Mikagi now fused into the large rock and tied with heavy chains and sporting a bloody gash on the right side of his face with a gag around his head to keep his mouth from being used to speak.

"He was about to raise his voice until I suggested that we needed bigger methods to keep him in check," the dead Shinji explained to him. "Frenzia knew of an herbal remedy that had similar effects as sleeping pills do, and I forced it down his mouth."

Shinji noticed his deceased counterpart sporting bloody knuckles on his left hand, which was likely the result of his success in keeping Mikagi from causing his living counterpart problems.

"Now comes your questions," Frenzia said to Shinji.

"My conversation with Ceres didn't go at all like I had hoped it would. Is there any type of additional guidance given to one seeking to inherit your mana?"

"No," Frenzia revealed, "but I'll know when my mana has been inherited by one of my bloodline. When you find a way to inherit the Ikari family's mana, that's when you'll be in the same league as the so-called children of the gods."

"You mean if I inherit."

"When it comes to your desire to save a life and stop this unnecessary suffering and bloodshed…I won't use 'if'. 'If' is reserved for other factors. It's not a matter of 'if', so much as it's a matter of 'when'."

Shinji then bowed his head to her.

"If it's any consolation to your morality-driven desire to inherit," his deceased counterpart uttered, "I have faith in your ability to do it. To save that man's life for Aya."

-x-

"Do you know Kagami's number?" Aya asked her brother.

"Yeah, why?" Aki asked her back.

"I want to try something that might work."

"Care to enlighten us?" Yuuhi asked her as he and Anzu sat in the waiting room with the twins.

"I want to tell him that Ceres is gone," Aya revealed.

"You want to tell this Kagami Mikage a fib?" Anzu questioned. "Feed him a lie that is meant to mask a truth about someone?"

"You really think he'd buy that, Aya?" Yuuhi asked her.

"He's obsessed with Ceres. He'd probably be broken if he knew she was beyond his reach now."

The door to the room opened and out came Shinji, dressed in clothes that seemed like someone of his personality preferred wearing. A white, button-up shirt over a black shirt and black pants. A green and purple coat completed the attire.

"Looking good, Shinji," went Anzu; it was nice to see that her late grandson's clothes put to good use after a year of disservice. "Looking good."

"Thank you," Shinji responded and bowed his head. "Was there something being said about a fib?"

"Aya wants to call Kagami, our cousin," Aki explained to him, "and tell him that Ceres is gone."

Shinji looked over at Aya and, instead of saying what should've been an admission of honesty, said, "You really think he'd believe that?"

"He obsesses over Ceres as much as her husband does. If he's made to believe that she's not around…"

"He'll likely give up on looking for you. He'll also likely believe that the Progenitor is gone, as well."

"Yeah."

"It's worth a try."

"Are you sure?" Asuka asked Shinji.

"No shame in trying to deceive him if it makes him stop. At the very least, it could at least impede him for a while."

-x-

Ring! The phone in Kagami rang, and said man picked it up.

"This is Kagami," he spoke.

"It's Aya, Kagami," went the person on the other end. "I thought you'd want to know that Ceres, the Tennyo you obsess over, is gone."

"Oh, really?"

There was a short silence before a response came.

"You should really believe Ms. Mikage, sir," a male voice, younger than usual, uttered. "I should know. It was I who helped the young lady be rid of Ceres."

"And who is this?" Kagami asked.

"It's the kid you sent your suits and Ms. Mikage's formerly-possessed brother after," the boy answered. "Shinji Ikari, and just that you know, the guy that possessed Aki Mikage has been dealt with, too. I saw to that personally."

"Shinji Ikari? I didn't expect to hear from you until after I met you in person."

"Well, I didn't expect to have my life turned upside-down by some unwanted and unwelcome visitors, so the feeling's pretty mutual."

"See, how do I know that Ceres and the Progenitor are truly gone?"

"Because I saw Ceres leave, hagoromo and all. To think that she was so close to what was hers, and yet blinded to its presence because of her inability to open her eyes without the aid of others. It was Toya that had possession of her hagoromo the whole time, and after he was made aware of it, he returned it to her and she left, leaving Aya a normal lady. So tell me, what good is Ceres to you when she has now moved beyond your reach?"

Kagami felt crossed a little. There was no way that both Ceres and the Progenitor were just gone. It couldn't be possible. He would've been deprived of secrets to the hagoromo and creating a perfected race for the future of mankind.

"Here's someone else that will say the same, that Ceres is no longer with us," Shinji informed him.

"Hello again, Kagami," he heard Aki's voice on the phone. "Mister Ikari…I mean Shinji…set me free of the Progenitor. I've never been more grateful. And they're right about Ceres, too. She's gone now."

And with that, Kagami felt really, really crossed now. If Ceres and the Progenitor were truly gone, his C-Genome project was at a standstill without Ceres and the hagoromo the Progenitor promised to give him that belonged to Ceres. Even if he had gathered more C-Genomes, it wouldn't have made a difference at all.

He hung up and fumed.

-x-

"He hung up," Aki told them. "I think he bought it."

"For everyone's sake, I pray that he did believe the lie," went Yui as the young man hung up the pay phone in the hospital hallway on the first floor. "At the very least, pray that this lie impedes him for a while. A long while."

As they walked away from the phone, Shinji looked over at Aya.

"Hey, we'll find a way to make the lie real," he assured her.

"Only when Ceres has her hagoromo will the lie be the truth," she responded. "Thank you for backing up the lie, though."

"Any thoughts on what you're going to do when this is all over?"

"Hopefully, I can just go to having a life with Toya. Go back to school and finish my education. Maybe set a date to get married, eventually."

Shinji smiled and expressed, "I'd like to see that happen."

"Me, too," they both turned to look at Asuka, who made her voice heard.

Shinji suspected that he must've hit a soft spot in the girl's emotions.

"I've only seen weddings on television," the girl explained. "I've never been to one in real life."

"Me, neither," he told her.

To be continued…

A/N: Well, here's the next chapter, and we see how Ceres is going to be. And does anyone think that Kagami is going to believe the lie that Ceres is gone?


	13. Love without Rage

Creation began on 03-07-16

Creation ended on 03-20-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Love without Rage

A/N: Here's a side-story for the Ceres universe's incarnations of Shinji Ikari and Asuka Soryu-Ayanami.

 _Two Years Ago_

It was Mother's Day, but Asuka Soryu-Ayanami never saw Shinji Ikari at school. She tried his house after school ended, but nobody seemed to be there.

 _If he's not at school or at home, then there's only one other place he can be,_ she thought as she ran down the street towards the beach.

A droplet of water fell onto her face. She had just remembered that today was supposed to rain heavily into the next two days.

-x-

Sometimes, he felt that his time spent at the beach was the one thing that made the twelve-year-old Shinji feel at ease. Being near or even on the magatama-shaped stones that seeded the entire town sometimes calmed him from the Rage-filled Anchor that was his awful heritage and legacy.

 _Even if I go back there, nobody will be there,_ he thought, referring to his mother and grandmother, who wouldn't be home tonight. _What point is there in going to a place where there is nobody waiting for you to come back?_

The stone was wet with heavy rainwater, but Shinji didn't mind it. Water was an essential part of life, and then there was Asuka, a girl six months younger than he was, who put up with his unwanted disposition as the current custodian of the Rage-filled Anchor.

"I knew I'd find you here!" He turned away from the crashing the waves and to his left of the stone, seeing Asuka, soaked to the bone, standing in front of him, looking ragged as she was out of breath. "This is the only other place we come to!"

"Why did you come here?" He asked her, sounding as depressed as he felt inside right now.

"You weren't in school today…and I worried over you," she answered him; every now and then, he would skip school to be by himself, and, sometimes, she would join him on those days, just to see what went on during the hours they were supposed to be in school. "I tried calling your phone, but…"

She then looked over behind him and saw his phone, with a cracked touchscreen. It must've been the third time his phone got damaged to the point where it either needed to be fixed or replaced.

"Oh," she sighed.

"I tried calling her," he told her, referring to his mother, who was often absent from his days…or weeks…or even months. "I was trying to say that I hoped she would have a nice day. But her voicemail box wasn't turned on. I threw it against the pavement."

Mother's Day wasn't one of his good days, as Asuka knew that his mother and he had a rather distant relationship…and there wasn't a day that went by that the girl knew enough about Yui Ikari to know that she wouldn't qualify for Mother of the Year. Not even Mother of the Day.

"We should get you home before you catch a chill, Shinji," she told him.

"What would be the point?" He questioned. "Even if I returned, there wouldn't be anyone there to go back to. The lights are often off. Darkness is that house's only occupant."

"Shinji…"

"You should go, Asuka. I'll be alright."

She raised her left hand to caress his face, but hesitated because of the expression on his face. It seemed to be contorted between sadness and rage, his desperation to connect to the woman that breathed life into him…and his own rage that paled in comparison to the unending rage that was built from siphoning the negative emotions of all those around him. A rage…born from a failure to connect to a parent that was supposed to matter.

"I wouldn't be good company, anyway," he told her, and buried his head into his knees.

Asuka pulled her hand away.

"I'm sorry you feel this way, Shinji," she told him.

CLASH! Lightning flashed in the sky above their heads, but neither reacted to it.

She turned to walk away, carefully wading through the wet sand so as to not get any in her shoes. There were times where she had to question why she fell in love with him, but found him as a tortured soul with a broken heart that was difficult to mend, even with her presence. Some people were just incapable of being completely relieved of their pain.

 _I would've went with him if he asked me to come with him,_ she thought, setting her feet on the solid pavement outside the beach.

"Asuka," she heard Shinji's voice behind her, and felt a pair of hands wrap around her waist. "I'm sorry, Asuka. Please, don't leave me."

She turned to face him, and saw only sadness on his face. His tortured, soaked and lonely face.

CLASH! The lightning came again, but neither teen reacted to it, as they looked into each other's eyes as the rain continued to pour around them.

Asuka raised her hands up to his face and kissed him.

Shinji merely held onto her waist.

"The darkness doesn't have to be the only occupant," she told him, referring to his house.

-x-

They were on his bed, and she was on top of him, kissing him still. He reclined back to support their weight, feeling Asuka's tongue bypass his lips and into his mouth.

"Uugh," he groaned as his closed eyes tightened and his hands balled into fists on the sheets.

Asuka moved back a little and allowed him a moment to relax.

"There is light in the darkness," she told him.

"Hmm?" He reacted, confused, and then saw her lift up her shirt and throw it to the floor, revealing a braless body…and a small-but-lovely pair of breasts that were the first that the teen boy had ever seen in his life. "Oh."

"Do you…like what you see?" She asked him, sounding a little embarrassed.

"Mmm," he nodded his head in the positive. "I do."

She then lowered herself to his chest and unbuttoned his shirt, removing it from him so she could place her palms on his untouched skin, seeing several shades of darker or lighter skin; Shinji had been a victim of unintentional self-harm ever since he turned eleven because of the Rage-filled Anchor. Her right hand had passed over a month-old burn from burning paper on his waist and her left hand moved over a week-old scrape from falling down a flight of stairs. But she knew him better than this, and knew he wouldn't have caused such harm to himself without a definite reason to, so she always overlooked his injuries. To her, he was stronger than the rage, and the fact that he was able to endure it was all the proof she needed.

"I love you, Shinji, and I want as much of you as I can get," she told him, lowering her head to be under his, rubbing her nose against his neck. "Even if that means you're like this. Landed with angry emotions that aren't yours."

"Asuka," he uttered, and she rose up to look down at him…and kissed him again. "Asuka."

She smiled at him and then moved away, her left hand touching him below his waist.

"Aah!" He shuddered, baring his teeth, trying to relax his balled fists in the sheets. "Asuka…"

"Urgh," the red-eyed redhead shut her eyes as she positioned herself atop him, lowering down, feeling him slowly sheathe into her.

"Aaahh!" Shinji yelled in pain, feeling like he had pricked one of his thumbs against something.

"Aaahh!" Asuka yelled in as much pain as she felt, feeling like she had cut herself somewhere between her legs and her stomach. "Aaahh…aah… I…never thought it would be like this before. It's…so hot."

He looked up at her, seeing that she was in just as much discomfort as he was feeling, but demonstrated a defiance against such an inconvenience, and raised his hands up to her shoulders.

"It feels so different from what I had expected," uttered to her. "It's so painful…but it's a different, lesser sort of pain. Aah!"

She shifted her lower body in order to ease the both of them.

"Does this help?" She asked him, smiling.

"Yes," he answered.

"That's good."

He rose up to meet her face closer…and kissed her again before lowering her to her back so that he was now on top.

"Shinji…we're one now, right?" Asuka asked him.

"Yes," he answered her. "Yes, Asuka, we are."

"That's good, then," she said, and felt him thrust into her. "Does this feel good for you?"

"It feels…really good…Asuka…"

"Knowing that…really…makes me…happy to…know…"

His left hand, which was on her right breast, moved to her side as she raised her arms to hold his face. He had never felt this way before. Ever since he met Asuka years ago, there was a time where he wanted to keep her at a distance. Maybe even now, he wanted to keep her at bay because of his celestial heritage. But he didn't feel that way, anymore.

"Asuka… I…I can't…can't stop," he told her, feeling like he was about to explode out of his skin.

"Me, too, Shinji…" She responded, feeling the walls close in on her. "Shinji… Aaahh!"

Her legs, which had wrapped around his waist, tightened around him as he felt a sudden release from all of his bindings.

"Aaaah!" He gasped, seeing only Asuka surrounded by white. "Aaah…aaah…"

"Aaah…aah…" Asuka felt like a dam had cracked opened and spilled out a massive amount of water onto an empty town and washed away most of everything that existed. "Aaah…"

She felt Shinji's head fall onto her breasts, mildly exhausted, just as she was at the moment. It was as though…all that he was at the moment…just flowed out of him. It had all flowed out and was absorbed into her.

He shifted over onto her right side, looking at her with a small smile.

She smiled back and held him in her embrace.

"Asuka," she heard him speak.

"Yes?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

While Mother's Day might've been one of his least favorite days because of his lack of a relationship with his mother, at least this Mother's Day was one that he felt happy about, even if the happiness wasn't what he had originally desired. And right now, all he really wanted at that moment…was just to be held by the woman he loved. That was…all that he wanted in that moment.

-x-

As the rain blanketed the morning and left everything wet, Shinji and Asuka had ignored the world outside said boy's bedroom, as they were just cooped up in his bed, their clothes from the previous day scattered on the floor.

Asuka knew she would have to explain to her guardian, Mine Ayanami, where she had been last night and why she didn't come home, but she wasn't as concerned about that as she was lost in this bliss she was sharing with Shinji. Even though she had crossed a line that most would say is forbidden until after you're in a committed relationship with someone on a long-term basis, she knew what she felt for this boy was true.

Shinji, for what to be the thirty-seventh time in his life ever since the Rage-filled Anchor made itself known in him, hadn't felt its presence while holding onto Asuka. And he hoped that it would stay that way for a while. He had never felt this way around anyone as he had with the redhead.

"Hey, Asuka?" He spoke.

"Hmm?" She responded.

"Do you…wanna skip school today?"

She moved his head away from breasts and looked him in his eyes.

"Sure," she answered him.

Then, as he slowly got out of bed, a random thought about his mother rose up in his conscious. She didn't know that he had sex with Asuka for the first time, and on Mother's Day. He would've had to let her know, eventually…but then decided that he didn't want her to know about this. Or his grandmother, for that matter. He just wanted to cherish this good thing he had with Asuka.

"Is it alright with you…if we didn't tell anyone about this?" He asked her.

Asuka rose up, using the blanket to cover her breasts, and expressed, "Shinji, nobody has to know if we don't want them to."

"I just…don't want to lose you now. To anyone."

She moved over to him and held his shoulders as she rested her head against his back.

"I'm all yours, Shinji…just as you're all mine," she assured him. "What happened between us…can stay between us."

Shinji turned to look at her and smiled.

"Thank you, Asuka."

She smiled back…but then pulled him back into bed with her. It might've been a while before his mother and/or grandmother returned…and she wanted to take full advantage of the time these two had the house to themselves since they weren't going to go to school.

To be continued…

A/N: The rest of what they did in the bed, I shall leave to your imaginations, readers. But hey, do feel kind enough to leave a review to question if Asuka Soryu-Ayanami will engage in that sort of stuff with Shinji of the Eva universe as she had with her Shinji from the Ceres universe. Peace.


	14. Familiarity

Creation began on 03-19-16

Creation ended on 04-08-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Familiarity

He stood in his room. Well, not really his room, but his room in a life that he had never lived. This was something Shinji had to process slowly, as he looked down at the scorch marks where his deceased counterpart committed suicide. The memory of that day feeling like a loop, with Asuka's frightened expression as her lover condemned himself to death to keep from harming her worse than from when he hurt her earlier.

It was shortly after they had left the hospital (under the condition that, should Shinji ever feel like he needs to somewhere where he couldn't hurt himself or anyone else, they would return to the hospital) that Anzu suggested that they go back to the Ikari house.

" _Since it seems like our fates are intertwined, we all need to see this to its conclusion,"_ she had told them, though Shinji was unsure about just how much of their fates had been intertwined with one another, and just how far they were from the conclusion.

Shinji looked at his deceased counterpart's possessions, noticing that he had a small, storage bin full of Apple iPhones that were either smashed up or with a destroyed touchscreen. He didn't have any Apple devices of his own back in his world, but he was sure that if he had, he wouldn't had gone through so many. And then, there was the one part of the room that he was avoiding to a degree: The bed. He kept making a move towards the sheets, but refrained from touching them.

"Those sheets are clean, you know," he looked at the door and saw Asuka. "Yui cleaned them a week after he died. Some of my blood was on the sheets from when he hit me while under the influence of the rage."

"Oh, uh… Asuka…how are you doing?" He asked her.

"I'm coping with the parting, but it will be a while before I'm completely over my loss. But what of you? How are you dealing with this all?"

"I'm rather uneasy about this, but I won't fight it."

"Yui actually seemed to jump at you being here. As different as you are…and as different as we are to you from those you know from that other world, DNA doesn't deceive unless it's been fabricated for wrongful purposes. You're related to Yui and Anzu by blood, which makes you their relative…and that makes this your home, too."

Yet Shinji felt she was having a hard time just looking at him because he looked so much like her lover, something that he himself wasn't.

Sighing as he finally sat down on the bed, he uttered, "Can you tell me a little more about yourself, Asuka? I mean…what do you do during times like this?"

Asuka slowly approached him…and then sat down next to him.

"I would skip school sometimes. Whatever I missed, I made up for it so my grades never slipped. During those days, I would go to the beach, or the park or even just wander around the town." She told him. "I had once considered getting a tattoo, but I…I…"

"It's okay," he stopped her. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"No, it's alright. I want to tell you. I had considered getting a tattoo…but I decided not to. It was a phoenix tattoo. Well depicted, almost life-like. You could just look at it and you're left wondering if someone found a way to capture a bird of fire and wrap it around the flesh of any that desire to wear it on their person."

"Sounds like quite a tattoo."

-x-

"…So we now know that we have Ceres' hagoromo," said Yuuhi to Suzumi on the phone in the kitchen in the Ikari house. "We're just having some difficulty with returning it to her without there being more casualties."

As he conversed with his sister-in-law over the phone, in the living room area, everyone else (excluding Shinji and Asuka) were enjoying tea and pastries.

"It feels strange being here after our unexpected visit almost two days ago," said Aya to Yui and Anzu, and the younger woman poured another cup of tea for their guests.

"It's quiet here," added Aki, setting his cup down.

"It's always quiet around here," said Yui to them, setting the teapot down. "Some people enjoy peace and quiet, but I honestly hate the excessive silence."

"But surely, you've had your fair share of ruckus over the years," said Q-Chan to her.

"Only when I was away from the house. I hear other people talking about their daily lives. Their good feelings, their problems. I just did whatever I had to keep from coming back here. Not one of the many things that I am proud of about myself."

"He didn't hate you in the end, though," the ladies, Aki and Toya turned to face Asuka, who had come down from upstairs and entered the room; she had overheard the conversation. "At least…not all the time, I mean."

Yui sighed as she understood what the redhead meant. Their Shinji, despite the severity of the neglect he was given by his mother, merely hated the neglect and not her as much as he probably should have. But still, she had nightmares where she wished he had never been neglected and left to find a substitute of love and affection elsewhere. And then, there was this new Shinji's past that she saw when his Rage-filled Anchor coursed through her and the other women, feeling like his neglect was her own son's in a warped and cracked mirror.

 _I would've given as much as I had to in order to take all of that pain away,_ she thought.

"How is Shinji doing?" Toya asked Asuka.

"He hesitated before sitting down on the bed," the redhead explained. "I had to tell him the sheets were clean before he relented and sat down with me."

That's when Aya and Yuuhi recalled that the deceased Shinji was this girl's lover, which meant they had likely used his bed for more than just sleeping. This…and Aya being among the only four women and the only people that had an intimate awareness of the boy's past to know that he wasn't in any relationship that dealt with romance or any other form of intimacy.

Asuka sat in an empty chair and reclined her head, looking up at the ceiling.

"So, what did I miss?" She asked them.

"Nothing, really," Anzu told her.

"Well, Suzumi's been informed about the situation," went Yuuhi as he returned from using the phone in the kitchen. "She wishes us luck in resolving the issue."

"It's gonna take a lot more than luck if we want to resolve this issue," Asuka gave her opinion. "What is luck without an important aspect of effort thrown into it? And what is effort without a single thought to give it its mobility?"

"What are you talking about?" Aya asked her.

"Will. It's gonna take will to resolve anything."

But as she said that, the red-eyed redhead wanted to forget what she had seen…the instant she touched Shinji on his shoulder upstairs.

-x-

 _A while ago_

Shinji had gotten up off the bed because he needed to use the restroom, but then Asuka got up to stop him. Mainly, it was assure him that she wasn't trying anything inappropriate with him, and then she touched him on his left shoulder.

FLASH! Asuka saw something so terrible that it must've paled in comparison to what she had experienced at the hospital.

There was Shinji, who seemed lost and alone in the darkness around him. Then, from behind him, came a man, one wracked by hatred, wearing orange-tinted glasses and a black outfit that seemed so terrible that it had to be an awful trend for him; she felt like he was related to Shinji, but the guy was just too creepy. A moment later, the man attacked Shinji with his right arm, which looked horribly deformed, like a parasite had gotten a hold of it and mutated it beyond any sense of rationale, and Shinji had blood dripping out from his mouth.

 _No!_ Asuka thought, feeling as though she had impaled in the chest, not Shinji, and had her heart ripped out of her.

"Asuka?" She lost sight of the vision and found herself facing Shinji, back in her dead lover's room. "Are you alright?"

"Huh?" She reacted, but then realized that she was being spoken to by him. "Oh, uh, yeah. I'm fine."

But Shinji seemed disturbed by something.

"Are you alright?" She asked him.

"I'll tell you about it later today," he told her, and then walked away from her. _Oh, no. I can't let that happen to her. He took his own life to keep her alive. He said there might be hope for me, so I need to keep that future from happening, no matter what._

As he entered the bathroom and sat on the toilet, mirroring Asuka's initial usage of the seat back at his hotel room, Shinji felt wracked by a sense of guilt from what hadn't happened yet. Because the very instant she touched him…he saw a terrible future in which she would suffer unless he defied that unforgiving fate. He saw her on the floor, surrounded by a pool of blood…and her stomach sported a horrible hole where her organs should've resided. And hovering above her, just as her eyes started to glaze over, was someone that looked like his father, with a deformed right arm.

He knew she would have to be informed, and he wouldn't withhold this sort of thing from any of these people; they had a right to know.

 _It's worse than what I had seen the previous year,_ he heard the other Shinji say in his mind, and he found himself back in the misty woods with the lanterns, facing his deceased counterpart.

"You saw it, too?" He asked him.

"I did," he answered. "She needs to know. If she knows, she can be prepared, defy that fate."

"I…I wasn't even…"

"I know. It just happened. Just like with myself."

"I will tell her."

"Don't wait too long. Nothing good happens from doing so."

Then Shinji was back in the bathroom, and got off the toilet to relieve himself. When he was finished, he washed his hands and examined his face in the mirror. He looked different from before he left the hospital, like he had gone through something that had been exhilarating beyond what he had found to be worth his time. And most importantly, he looked more alive, like he had something that he could live for that had no strings…except for the ones he had that tied him to the new life.

 _I saw Asuka die,_ he thought, _and I don't want that. I don't want her or anyone else to die._

-x-

"…They're glued to that mirror," Hyuga expressed to Shigeru, referring to Misato, Rei and Asuka, having stayed the whole night in the Geo-Front and never leaving the room with the mirror that seemed to function as a window to this world that Shinji was in.

"Wherever the Third Child is, it must be better than here is right now," Shigeru expressed.

As they walked around the base, trying to get it and the Evas back in working order, the three women that watched how Shinji was affecting the lives of these people in this world where someone just like him had once lived continue to view his exploits. Just recently, they saw how he was made to view a possible future where the red-eyed Asuka had been seemingly murdered by someone that looked like Gendo Ikari, and that he needed to inform her in order to keep that fate from happening. But it occurred at the same time that the red-eyed Asuka saw him suffering at the hands of the same man.

"Misato," went Asuka to her, "would the commander actually…do something like that to someone?"

"Honestly, I think he's capable of anything," she answered her; due to the lack of a relationship between Shinji and his father, she had to suspect now that Commander Ikari was simply not a good person to have any sort of relationship with.

Even Rei was starting to wonder if Commander Ikari was capable of actually murdering another person. But she had to consider that there were other possibilities to the vision.

"Are we even sure that it was Commander Ikari that was shown?" She questioned.

"Who else could it have been?" Asuka questioned. "Earlier, we found out that the dead Shinji's father was our Shinji's father's counterpart…and he nearly killed his mother because he was drunk if it hadn't been for her father, who was Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki's counterpart, and he died in prison. It's the only explanation."

"I'm gonna have to agree with her, Rei," said Misato to her. "Plus, the guy was a dead ringer for Commander Ikari."

Rei then picked up the mirror and was shown the world Shinji was in again.

-x-

Shinji came downstairs and saw Asuka coming back upstairs, meeting her in the middle.

"Asuka," he gasped. "I was just coming to speak with you. I wanted to talk about earlier."

"Um, yeah. Same here," she told him.

It should've been odd to be standing in front of him for her, but it wasn't. She knew why it wasn't so; she knew he wasn't him. The man she knew and loved was dead…and she had a formal parting with him, which gave her a sense of closure that was needed to help her move on. This was a completely different person…who just looked like him. He deserved to be viewed as he was and not as she knew someone else as.

"About earlier," he started.

"You saw something horrible," she cut him off. "You saw me?"

"Yeah," he resumed. "I saw you die."

"Me, too, Shinji."

"What?"

"When I touched your shoulder…I saw you die, as well."

Shinji didn't expect to hear her say this. Ever since his first conversation with his dead counterpart, he just assumed that this Future Link ability that tied in with the Rage-filled Anchor only worked with those that were cursed with Tennyo blood and were born with the power. Or in his case, an adequate substitute of someone that tried to end the legacy of displaced anger…who just happened to be from another universe. But now, he had to rethink what he thought he knew.

"What did you see?" Asuka wanted to know.

"I saw you on the ground somewhere. You were surrounded by a pool of blood…and your stomach…had a Large hole in it. And I saw someone that looked like my father, only he had a deformed right arm. I think he was the one that…killed you."

Asuka leaned against the railing on her left and suspected that the guy he saw in her potential future was his father, since Yui confided in her (and she had been likely to have confided in him, too) that her own father killed the guy that fathered her lover because he attacked her while drunk.

"I think it was your father, Shinji," she told him. "I saw him kill you in the vision I had. You were in the dark…and he appeared behind you and ripped out your heart. It didn't feel like I was just watching it all happen. It felt like it actually happened to me."

Shinji wasn't sure how his father related to what was going on here, as he was in the other dimension with the Evas and Angels and they were all here where there was no fate of mankind war happening. But the fact that they both saw him in two different future had to mean something. Maybe they weren't really two different, potential futures, but were actually the same, potential future.

"But…if we now know what the future brings," he told her, "we can avoid it altogether by being careful of what could happen."

"Yeah, but we don't know what could happen that would result in that future," she explained. "If we both saw the same guy, then that could mean that it's the same future, just seen from two perspectives. But we have no idea how or why a future like that could or would happen. I mean, there's no way that anyone can get here the way you did, right? You just…fell out of the sky and Aya and Toya found you."

"Yeah, that's right," he agreed with her. "Unless NERV was experimenting with trying to travel to new worlds, I don't think there would've been a need for the Eva…or anything else to do nothing but fight."

"Do you…miss your world?"

That was a question Shinji didn't expect to be asked. Then again, he didn't expect people to believe he was from another world.

"Yes," he answered her. "I do miss it a little. I miss the people I met back there. I don't miss the fighting or the unnecessary conflict…or my father, though. And…"

"Go on."

"Would it be wrong to say that I feel a sense of relief to not be facing creatures I don't know anything about besides an unexplained reason for wanting to remove people from existence?"

"No, it wouldn't. That should be done by adults that believe in fighting an enemy they can't coexist with, not by young people that should be able to have lives free of conflict. If I could speak for you, I'd say that you're at peace here."

"Thank you, Asuka."

They both came back down and joined the others.

-x-

If Ceres was truly gone, along with the Progenitor, then Kagami's C-Genome project was in dire straits because it required the hagoromo of a Tennyo. He wouldn't have been able to create a better race of people for the world without one to use on the C-Genomes he already had. Until an idea came to mind: If he couldn't find a hagoromo, then he would try to have one made. If it required Tennyo energy to achieve this feat, he had several to aid him in this endeavor.

-x-

"…He feels a sense of relief to not be fighting Angels?" Asuka questioned, setting the mirror down on the table. "I think anyone just like him would feel that way."

"And your red-eyed counterpart says it's not wrong to feel that way," went Misato added in, picking up the mirror, which then showed Shinji in the dining room with everyone, presumably eating dinner.

-x-

"…I must say, this is quite a meal here, Yui," Aya praised the younger Ikari woman.

"Thank you, but it was Shinji who suggested the curry," the woman responded.

"You should be a chef, Shinji," suggested Aki to the boy.

"Thank you, Aki," Shinji replied. "That is something I wouldn't mind doing in the future."

That's when Shinji decided to ask something to everyone at the table.

"What does everyone see themselves doing in the future?" He asked. "You know, when this matter with Ceres is over and everything."

Everyone looked at him with silence, either wondering how to answer him…or whether to say something else entirely.

"Pretty much the same thing as you, Shinji," went Yuuhi, breaking the silence. "Become a chef. I've always enjoyed cooking."

"I haven't been able to find my calling yet," said Aya, due to her pursuit of education being stunted by the search for Ceres' hagoromo and being hunted by her family in order to kill her. "I hope to do something meaningful with my life later on when this is over."

"For a while back before we met Shinji, I was working as an assistant to a doctor," Toya revealed. "I could likely go back to doing that or being an actual doctor. That would be good, helping people."

"I still long to find my soulmate," expressed Q-Chan, causing Anzu to chuckle.

"They exist, Q-Chan," the elder Ikari woman informed her. "Sometimes, they end up seeking you across a vast distance."

"Speaking from past experience?" Yui asked her mother.

"It's been known to help. How do you think I met your father?"

"You told me he was thrown into a pool by a bully and you dived in to save him because he didn't know how to swim."

"I'm pretty sure it was I that didn't know how to swim and I was the one with the bully."

"Eh-heh," Shinji chuckled at their talking.

 _It was Grampa that was thrown into the pool,_ he heard the other Shinji say to him.

"What of you, Aki?" Yuuhi asked the newly-freed brother of Aya.

"Probably travel the world," he confessed. "Ever since that day our lives got turned upside-down over a year ago, I've been unable to actually pursue other interests."

"Same here," went Yui. "I really need to get out of the life of a scientist and be something else entirely. Or at least be something."

"Like what?" Shinji asked her, really just wanting to hear about her goals. "What do you want to be that's different?"

"A computer technician, perhaps. A doctor like Toya, even. Whatever leads me away from the life I had as a geneticist."

Shinji could only smile at her desire to do something completely different with her life.

"What about you, Asuka?" Aya asked the redhead.

"Me?" She responded, having been unable to come up with a simple answer to what she wanted to do with her life when this was all over. "I have no idea about my future. There was one idea, but I wasn't sure about it for three years. Now I have no interest in it at all."

"What was it about?" Shinji asked, wanting to know.

"I actually thought about working at Mikage International," she revealed, which surprised Aya and Aki. "But then I met each of you that day and found out what was going on with that place. And after my being manhandled by Ceres' damaged spouse and discovering how indifferent the woman was about everything that was going on, that's when I lost interest. Not something some people would share with people after meeting them."

Shinji was about to speak, but Aki beat him to him.

"I don't blame you for saying that," he told her. "A lot of crazy things have been going on over there."

And Shinji wanted to make those crazy things end for good. Not only because he wanted to so that no one else would need to, but because he wanted to end the senseless injustice against those of Tennyo lineage and ensure that his new friends would be able to have a future. He found himself unable to say anything after hearing that, and returned to eating his meal in silence.

-x-

Fuyutsuki returned to the room and found all three ladies had fallen asleep around the mirror that showed Shinji in the other dimension. He sighed and decided to leave them alone.

"Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki," he turned around and saw Ryoji Kaji.

"Yes?" He responded.

"How are they?"

"They're asleep."

"Oh. Commander Ikari demands your presence."

"Very well." As Fuyutsuki left down the hall, a part of him had to wonder if Shinji had managed to inherit Frenzia's hagoromo or mana yet. _He wants only to save these people's lives, but not to be a god or anything of the sort. But he'd also be free of the Eva, a fate he was dealt before his life even began. A fate he would never have to be bound to ever again._

-x-

Shinji couldn't help but look around the house after dinner. He was very curious about the life that was lived here by Yui and her mother. There was a large picture of the two in Anzu's room, along with the Sub-Commander's counterpart that was Yui's father in this world; he guessed it was a family portrait taken way back when Yui was much younger, before her son was around. There was also something else that caught his attention over by the elder woman's bedside dresser.

It looked like a necklace, but its only decorative feature was a bullet that seemed smashed up.

"A bullet?" He spoke, curious.

"One of three," he turned around and saw Anzu, covering her mouth to cover a yawn. "Do you…know about that evening from over two years ago?"

Shinji nodded in the negative.

"Yui, Asuka and I were at a movie with Shinji," she explained. "He and Asuka invited us to come with on their date. It was on the way home that we were assaulted by a mugger."

Shinji looked back at the bullet and then back at Anzu.

"Go on," he gestured.

"He wanted our valuables, but Shinji stood up to him, told the guy that he couldn't have anything we had. He either never took notice of the revolver…or just didn't care that the guy was armed. The mugger shot him in the stomach and he went down. We were almost next on the list, but then Shinji got back up and jumped him, getting shot twice in the chest. He should've been killed because the bullets were among the best caliber, or at least in pain…but he…he wouldn't go down…and he didn't let go of the mugger. Beat him into a pulp until the police came. He was in the hospital for three days after that night in a coma when three gunshot wounds should've killed him. The doctors all say that he was lucky, that the bullets, despite being used at point-blank range, had missed his major organs."

"So, then…this was one of the bullets the doctors removed from him during surgery," Shinji expressed.

"Asuka had asked for the bullets after they were done with them," Anzu explained the bullets being in their possession. "His willingness to suffer like that to protect the people he loved made her love him even more. Honestly, I wanted to scold him being reckless and stupid for doing something that was dangerous. Getting shot three times and almost dying wasn't worth eighty yen, three cell phones, two wristwatches, lip balm and a notepad. I asked him why he did it when it wasn't worth it…"

"And he told you," Shinji cut her off, "that everyone deserves what they've earned."

She looked at him and said, "Yeah. He took the reaping and sowing concept I had mentioned to him and defended his reason for protecting three women, one of which would end up being his lover and the other barely spending any time with him. I wanted to slap him in his face for being so reckless…but in the end, I was glad that I didn't scold him for his chivalry. After that day, I had a nickname for him. Jaganoto. He added onto it by having be like a middle name."

"Shinji "The Juggernaut" Ikari?" Shinji questioned, unable to suppress a chuckle. "That sounds like someone capable of handling himself quite well."

"That's exactly what Asuka said."

-x-

"…So you both saw a possible future in which you were both killed by the same guy?" Yui asked Asuka, who had explained to the older woman that she had somehow saw Shinji's future, which seemed to intertwine with what he saw of her future.

"That's right," she answered back. "Yet, what didn't make any sense for either future we saw was that we were both killed by the same guy."

"The doppelganger of the man from the world Shinji's from."

"The doppelganger of the guy you were with?"

"Yeah."

As they were conversing in Yui's room, Aya and Toya, in one of the spare rooms, were just wondering how they were going to help Shinji inherit Frenzia's hagoromo so that he could save Toya's life.

"Shinji said it had something to do with the difference between want and need," went Toya, "and being who you know you're meant to be…and being what others want you to be."

"Who you know you're meant to be and what others want you to be," Aya repeated. "So, maybe it's like he wants to be himself…but everyone around him wants him to be what they expect of him?"

"That must be a possibility."

"Well, I don't want Shinji to do anything he doesn't feel comfortable doing. He has every right to be himself and do as he feels."

"He doesn't want power…but he doesn't want anyone to suffer. Perfection and power, he'll ignore. Peace and happiness, he'll take any chance he gets."

"Yeah."

They set down their futon sheets that Anzu gave them and climbed into bed together.

"Shinji needs to be whatever he chooses to be," Aya told Toya.

"And nobody should have any right to force him to be what he can't or doesn't want to be," Toya responded back.

-x-

"…What is the status of the Third Child in that mirror?" Fuyutsuki was surprised to hear Gendo ask him this.

"He has…discovered some revelations that are rather conflicting to something he has decided upon himself to do in order to help these people," Fuyutsuki told him.

"Such as?"

"In the world he's in, a woman from the Ikari family of that world's ancient past had informed him that he could inherit something from her that would give him power, allow him to do whatever he wanted."

Gendo removed his folded hands from his usual position at his desk and looked at Fuyutsuki like he needed to hear the response again.

"A woman affiliated with the Ikaris of that dimension offered him something that would give him power?" He questioned.

"Frenzia, he called her," Fuyutsuki stated. "Some sort of…celestial matriarch."

"A goddess?"

"Or a descendant of a god, making her a demigoddess of sorts."

This caught Gendo's interest.

"Where is the mirror now?" He asked.

"Major Katsuragi and the First and Second Children are still using it to observe the Third Child," Fuyutsuki answered, not liking where this was going at all.

-x-

"…I could've taken the sofa, you know?" Asuka told Shinji, who was laying on the floor in her deceased lover's room.

"No, it's okay," Shinji told her back, quite surprised that the red-eyed redhead, despite having not been around here for nearly a year since her Shinji died, kept some of her clothes here whenever she was with him. "I'm used to the floor."

Of course, Asuka knew this was true. Though, there were memories she had of this Shinji sleeping in places that weren't with any bedding, such as the back of an alley when he arrived in this Tokyo-3 city back in his world. His timidity and low self-esteem seemed to be heavy factors in how easy it seemed for people of authority to push him around and make him do things he wasn't comfortable doing.

 _He seems so timid to be this close to anyone sometimes,_ she thought, looking up at the ceiling from the bed. "Hey, Shinji?"

"Yeah?"

"You know that I wouldn't…do anything to you, right?"

"I trust you, Asuka."

There was a silence between them, and Asuka just assumed that Shinji had gone to sleep.

"Asuka?" She heard him speak up.

"Yes?" She responded.

"About that time at the hospital, when I was under the rage…and I grabbed you… I am sorry for what I did to you."

She should've told him that it was unnecessary, that she had been through the unintentional abuse before that she knew he didn't mean to hurt her. But instead, she told him, "You're forgiven, Shinji."

On the floor, a saddened Shinji returned to his silence. The vision he had of her dark future where she was killed by someone that looked just like his father had unnerved him. If what he saw was something that could happen, he would do whatever he could to keep it from happening because, as much as he felt like he just met her, he found himself feeling something for her that he couldn't describe.

"I won't let that man hurt you, Asuka," he uttered, thinking her asleep.

If only he knew that the girl was still awake…and she heard what he said. She balled her body in the bed and silently prayed for a better future than the one they both saw.

-x-

"…Wha?" Misato gasped, finding herself in a misty forest adorned with dim lanterns. "What is this place?"

"Misato?" She looked to her left and saw Asuka standing a few feet away from her.

"Major Katsuragi," she turned to her right and saw Rei.

Both girls were dressed in yukatas that mirrored their hair coloring, just as she herself was dressed in a yukata that mirrored her hair coloring.

"What is this place?" Asuka asked Misato.

"I don't know where this place is," she responded.

"What are you three doing here in this place?" They all turned towards a tree that appeared burnt, where a boy that looked like Shinji stood against it, dressed in a black and red yukata that appeared scorched and ripped, and much of his visible flesh appeared to mirror the outfit. "Wait a minute… Are you three… You're the ladies from his world."

"You…you're not Shinji," Asuka realized; this had to be the other Shinji that committed suicide in the world where her doppelganger's eyes were red instead of blue. "You're his doppelganger."

He looked at her and then pointed down the trees adorned with lanterns that made up a path.

"Somehow, your souls have strayed from your world and ended in the spiritual boundaries of where I reside with Frenzia in order to commune with your world's Shinji," he deduced their reason for being here right now as he led them down the path.

"We fell asleep," Misato revealed. "So, we must be dreaming."

"Dreaming?" Rei questioned.

"You must've never had a dream before," the deceased Shinji stated, turning back to look at her. "Dreams are pieces of reality that are fragmented into new forms sustained by one's sense of creativity. People seeing themselves able to walk on clouds, breathe underwater, dance among the cosmos."

"You…live inside Shinji's mind?" Misato asked him.

"I merely occupy the smaller depths of his soul," he explained. "Along with Frenzia, we're more like transient guests, however long our transience actually is."

"Transience?"

"Think of the vastness of Shinji's soul as an apartment that we're just renting for storage. You can't stay in an apartment for too long. Many things are bound to happen."

As they continued along the path, the deceased Shinji halted them as they made it to the large rock that held Mikagi, who looked in a worse state than the young boy did. Beside him was Frenzia, who sat there to make sure that he was kept in check, and she looked up at them.

"Misato Katsuragi," she uttered, levitating off the ground and onto her feet. "Rei Ayanami and Asuka Langley Soryu. A privilege it is to meet you in spirit."

Rei and Misato bowed their heads to her, and she bowed back.

Asuka was the only one that didn't show a form of courtesy to the ancient woman.

"Your Shinji will likely be surprised to know that you are here," she told them, and with a gesture from her left hand, made them levitate from off the ground, leaving the misty forest, which didn't seem to represent any actual forest that Shinji might've known of.

"Miss Frenzia?" Misato spoke.

"Please, call me Frenzia," the ancestral matriarch preferred. "Formality is unnecessary."

"Very well, then. Frenzia…just how much about us do you know?"

"Only as much as Shinji's memories of you allow."

The five of them were now among a sea of stars, adrift in the ocean of space.

"There they are," Frenzia pointed over to a Cat's Eye Nebula, where a young boy and girl seemed to be floating without a sense of direction. "It would seem that Shinji and Asuka have unintentionally engaged in a shared dream of lucidity."

"Lucidity?" The blue-eyed Asuka asked her.

"Dreams where you know you're dreaming," she answered.

As they floated closer, Misato and the girls could hear what appeared to be some sort of an argument between Shinji and the red-eyed Asuka.

"…There's nothing wrong with wanting to protect someone else," they heard the red-eyed Asuka say to him, "but it's not something you need to dedicate yourself. You were forced to dedicate yourself to the Evangelion back in that other world you're from, and was nearly convinced that it was all you had. But you're here now in a world that has no need for it. I know you mean well, but please, don't commit to something that will leave you with nothing."

"Even if there's nothing to gain from wanting to protect people that should matter above all others?" They heard Shinji ask.

"Don't do it for others. Do it for yourself. Do it because you want to be selfless, not selfish."

"Shinji?" The boy turned around and saw Misato calling over to him.

"M…Misato?" He uttered, surprised to see her. "What are you doing here in my dream?"

"I thought this was my dream," the red-eyed Asuka expressed.

"It's a shared dream of lucidity," went Frenzia to them. "You're both having the same dream."

"We don't know how we got here. We were asleep."

"Souls are often drawn to one another if they feel some degree of attachment, emotional or spiritual," Frenzia revealed to them. "What is your attachment to Shinji? For it had to be what led you here to this realm of existence…beyond the structures and shackles of mortality."

"Ever since the Twelfth Angel aftermath, over a week has past by since you were declared MIA," the blue-eyed Asuka revealed to Shinji.

"MIA?" He asked, confused.

"Your body wasn't recovered when the Angel was detonated," Misato explained.

"But…everyone else assumes I'm dead, don't they?"

"Yes, Ikari," went Rei. "Everyone that doesn't know that you are in fact still alive."

"But how did any of you discover that he is still alive?" The other Shinji questioned, wanting to know for himself. "You have no technological methods to pierce the metaphorical veil of other worlds."

"There was a woman from this Mikage family that had a mirror that she gave me," Misato explained.

"Mikage?" Frenzia asked.

"Probably Aya's family's doppelgangers in the other world." Shinji suspected, since he'd seen the doppelgangers of Asuka, his mother, his father and the Sub-Commander.

"Yeah. Probably the doppelganger of the girl you're helping, only elderly. She gave us a mirror, and it's been helping us keep track of you." Misato clarified.

"Mirrors, especially ones blessed by ancient members of a blessed family, can act as windows to other places," Frenzia elaborated. "However, one should be careful of looking too deeply into mirrors."

Their astral environment suddenly got darker, save for some stars surrounding them.

"It's hard to believe that my doppelganger's willing to be near you," Asuka told Shinji, referring to her red-eyed counterpart. "And you assaulted her."

"Unintentionally," said the dead Shinji.

"It's still assault."

"He apologized to her."

"And she forgave him," added Frenzia.

The red-eyed Asuka found her blue-eyed counterpart to be…intimidating right now. It was like she couldn't let up with anything or anyone.

"And you let him into the bathroom with you," she heard her say to her. "He could've done whatever he wanted to you and nobody would've stopped him."

"You do realize that he might've even had a curious mind," she countered her doppelganger's accusations. "Or that he simply wanted to talk. How often do you meet with someone that is from another world and is almost an exact version of someone you knew for many years? Plus, I've been hurt before. My parents…my boyfriend…a scarred man with a damaged soul… I am no stranger to pain, whether it's physical or emotional."

Asuka Langley Soryu found herself unable to make her red-eyed counterpart see things from her perspective that Shinji was likely to get her killed.

"I have seen you in his memories," the red-eyed version expressed, "but to meet you in as close to person as possible… Eyes are like sapphire…shaped into daggers. Can't face directly without inviting the possibility of harm."

She floated over to Rei, examining her face.

"You look just like my foster sister," she told her, "except for the eyes and skin tone. You must be the only one in your world with red eyes like yours."

"I wouldn't know for sure," Rei responded; she never gave her appearance much thought.

The dead Shinji looked back and forth between his live counterpart and the red-eyed Rei Ayanami, and expressed, "Shinji, despite your Ms. Ayanami being a strange albino, she could nearly pass herself off as a relative of yours. She and her counterpart bear a small resemblance to our mother, too."

Shinji didn't actually notice the similarities because he had never seen a picture of what his mother looked like. But after seeing his dead self's mother, it was most likely that his own was very identical to her and Ayanami.

"You saw somebody in a future vision that looked like your father," went Misato to him.

"Huh?" He reacted.

"You saw what he saw?" The red-eyed Asuka questioned.

"What you both saw," explained Rei to them. "What you saw…has raised questions about what may or may not happen."

"What can happen only will if someone does something that leads to it," the dead Shinji expressed. "The darkest aspects of the unwritten future can only be achieved…when people that want to do good…do absolutely nothing."

"You saw what would happen to me…and you did something to prevent that future," his lover told him.

"If I had to, I would do it again because what I saw frightened me."

"What did you see?"

This caught everyone's attention, with the exception of Frenzia (it was likely because she knew what he had seen before he chose to kill himself to prevent it from happening).

"I snapped your neck," he revealed to them, looking distressed. "I loved you with all that I am…but there was no way I would take your life. Who loves someone to the point of killing them?"

Nobody answered, likely because they knew nobody of that sort.

"It's insanity," the red-eyed Asuka uttered. "You shouldn't love someone to the point of killing them. You should just love them."

She raised her left hand to his right shoulder.

Misato found it odd, even in a lucid dream, to see Shinji and Asuka in two different places in front of her. One of the Shinjis being comforted by an Asuka with red eyes and a softer personality, and the other two as far from each other as possible.

Even Rei found it unusual, despite the fact that two of them were from another world. And seeing a dead Shinji that should've looked more dead than severely injured was odd enough.

"It confuses you two," they both turned to face Frenzia, who looked at them. "Seeing them this way, still affirming their passion, even though one of them is beyond the realm of mortality."

"I just never known…" Misato spoke, but was cut off by Frenzia.

"That the dead could still feel for the living? I'm dead…and I can still feel. If you died, you would still feel if you chose to."

"If I choose to?"

"That's right."

"And…you were of divine heritage?"

"If that's how you perceive me…but I am no different from any other person of earthly origins. I have lungs no different from yours, a heart and brain, and I embrace humanity."

"A divine woman that accepts the company of regular beings beneath her," went Rei.

"No one should be beneath the status of anyone else. If you care for those around you, then you treat them as your equals, not as your inferiors."

"Yet the other woman, this Ceres, she doesn't follow your beliefs."

"And that is why she will be alone…and pitiable."

Rei then looked over at the living Shinji, who looked back.

"You want for Ikari-Kun to inherit your celestial powers?" She asked Frenzia.

"He wants to save a man from a premature fate because he holds within himself something that one of my people desires back in order to depart the realm of mortality. When he inherits my mana, he'll be able to preserve the life of anyone he chooses."

"But he will also be of divine status, a literal god."

Frenzia didn't deny this, but she didn't confirm it completely, either. She was no god, but her divinity was great. When Shinji inherited her mana, he would have her divinity…and would be capable of anything. He could save multiple lives, end fires with a mere thought, even turn barren wastelands into hospitable locations you could live in. But only once he had inherited it first.

"It bothers you?" She asked Rei instead.

"It would bother anyone," the blue-eyed Asuka stated. "But him, of all people? You would let him inherit something from you that would make him a god?"

"I wouldn't deny him the opportunity to do so, Ms. Langley Soryu."

"And yet, you know what kind of person he is?"

"Do you dislike him that much?"

"Look at him! He's scrawny! He's house-broken! He's…"

"Probably better off here than he was with people like you," went her red-eyed counterpart, surprising them to hear her express her opinion over his situation. "You have done nothing most of the time he was around you but make him feel like he has to be fearful of anyone that raises their arm to him…or worse than that. He's not even trying to be better than others around him."

"And you're defending him?"

"From people like you, myself in a different life…then, yes, I am defending him. He's not a cruel or sadistic person. You shouldn't have any reason justifiable enough to hate or abuse him."

Her blue-eyed counterpart looked over at the living Shinji and, despite having seen what he went through in this world he was now residing in, expressed her displeasure over what he has done.

"He said he felt relieved by not piloting the Eva," she revealed to her. "How do just accept that he feels relieved when there are still Angels out there trying to send the human race to an early grave?"

The red-eyed Asuka looked over at her dead lover's displaced counterpart, and responded, "If it had been myself, I'd be relieved, too. He didn't want to do it to begin with. He was forced by his father, who didn't even give so much as a kind word to him for many years…and praised him only once. Just once. You don't just praise someone you know only once…and you don't force them to do something they're not comfortable doing, knowing full well that they could be killed in the process or aftermath. But you, you view piloting the Eva as though it were the best thing to ever happen to you, even when you know you could die from it. I'm starting to wonder who's more than likely the most dangerous person I have met or could meet. A guy that might be Shinji's father for killing us both in a possible future…or you for being unwilling to be peaceful with others."

The blue-eyed Asuka felt threatened by her red-eyed counterpart. And to be compared in levels of danger with Commander Ikari, just because two separate visions of a potential future showed a guy that looked like him, down to the cold look on his face, murdering the both of them, her doppelganger and Shinji himself.

"I'm not like the Third's father!" She declared. "I'm not some crazy lunatic that could care less for his kid and prefers to be alone!"

"Then do something I can only guess would make you sick," her red-eyed counterpart responded. "Say something nice to Shinji or about Shinji. Something true, something that isn't false."

She looked at her like she was crazy to ask her of such a thing. The idea of actually saying something nice about Shinji…and actually meaning it…made her sick to her stomach.

"You want me to say something nice to Shinji?"

"Or nice about him, and it has to be the truth."

"And what if I don't? Or can't?"

"This is just a dream. Nobody dies in dreams. They just get revelations of truth."

"What revelations? What truth?"

"If we can't be honest to ourselves, how can we be honest to others?"

 _Shinji had said that at one point,_ thought Misato.

 _Ikari-Kun mentioned honesty being important in conversations,_ thought Rei.

"I won't," the blue-eyed Asuka expressed. "I hate him…and all he's ever done…is everything he has done. And you trust him…even when you didn't even know him like you knew…him (she pointed to the dead Shinji, who was now floating upside-down), or the type of person he is…or will be. If he gets you killed, it will be on you."

"And is that what you truly believe?" The red-eyed counterpart asked.

"He will lead you to despair. That is all I can believe with him."

"If being near him puts me in any danger…then it's a risk I must take…because he needs people that actually give a damn about him…just as I gave a damn about my dead lover…and still give a damn."

-x-

"…I see you couldn't sleep much, either, Ms. Mikage?" Yui asked Aya, finding the young woman in the kitchen, sitting at the table.

"Yeah," she responded. "I couldn't sleep much because of Ceres."

As Yui put on a pot of hot water, her curiosity was sparked.

"You want to talk about it?" She asked her again.

"I was dreaming of being on the beach with Toya, and then she shows up, telling me that we were better off without aid from Shinji…and that it was a mistake to have ever met him because he's keeping her from getting back her hagoromo. I told her that this is something we have to deal with until he inherits Frenzia's hagoromo and preserves Toya's life, since Frenzia can't do it and she won't do it. I've accepted that outcome, but Ceres… She refuses to see the morality in this choice that Shinji made because he doesn't want anyone else to die over a truth that she hid from us all, a truth that Shinji…and Frenzia herself…have brought to light."

Yui leaned on the side of the counter top and looked at Aya.

"What does your heart, your conscience, say to you about Shinji?" She asked her, wanting her honesty.

"Professionally or personally?" Aya responded.

"Personally."

"Personally…I believe in Shinji. I want him to see him inherit Frenzia's hagoromo and save Toya's life. If he did that…I'd be forever grateful to him, just as I am forever grateful to him for saving my brother's life. He saw an opportunity to save him where all Ceres ever saw was an opportunity to get rid of him if it meant getting rid of her husband."

Yui then turned to get a pack of tea from a box and uttered, "I'm putting my faith in Shinji, too. He helped me to see my son one last time, to say things to him that I never could say to him…or just to be honest with him when I should've been when he was alive. I…I got to be a mother to my son in those moments than I've not been in his entire life…and if I had a chance to be a mother to him again, I'd take it in a heartbeat."

"It would seem that we've both been touched in a special way by this Shinji that comes from another world beyond this one."

"Maybe he's an escapee from a doomed realm that just got away by accident…or a strange gift from the heavens that was just placed here for reasons unknown to us all."

"Maybe. Either way, I'm glad that I met him. I'm glad we all met him."

-x-

 _"…I'm glad that I met him. I'm glad we all met him."_ Aya's voice was heard in the room, just as Misato, Asuka and Rei awoke.

"…I saw Ikari-Kun," went Rei. "Two of him, the one that is alive and the one that was dead."

"I saw a woman that was his ancestral matriarch," added Misato, stretching her arms out. "She said that she believed in Shinji inheriting her power."

"I saw my red-eyed counterpart," added Asuka, "and she said she was willing to risk dying just to be near him."

"She asked you to say something nice to him…except you wouldn't," Misato told her.

"You said you hated him…and he's never done anything wrong to you," added Rei.

-x-

Shinji awoke to the new day, recalling a strange dream he had about speaking with Asuka.

"Asuka?" He uttered out. "Are you awake?"

On the bed, a stirring Asuka rubbed her eyes clear of muck, and turned over to look at the boy.

"Good morning," she greeted him.

"Good morning," he responded back. "Did you sleep well?"

"It depends on your definition of 'well'. Did you, by any chance, have a dream where you saw people from your world and you saw my blue-eyed counterpart?"

"That's what I was going to ask you about. I did have a dream like that."

"Same here. It's the closest I may ever get to actually speaking with my counterpart. Is she always such a… I'm certainly hoping you don't think of me being that way."

"I saw you speaking to her, defending me. I can't really think of you like that way. You're very different from her. You're probably the only person I know that actually suggested that she say something about another person that was nice and true…only she wouldn't because she…"

Asuka sighed and expressed, "You are a nice person. The nicest person to have ever ended up here. I don't think anyone back in your world truly understood the impact you had on them until you weren't there, anymore. We try not to take everything and everyone we meet for granted."

Knock, knock, knock! There was someone at the door.

"Shinji? Asuka?" It was Aya. "It's Aya. Can you talk?"

Shinji got up and straightened out before opening the door to meet with the Mikage woman.

"Yes, I can talk, Aya," he told her. "Is something wrong?"

"Not in that many words. I was spoken to by Ceres…and she said she wants to speak with you again."

"Ceres wants to speak with him?" Asuka questioned, curious at why the Tennyo of the Mikage family wanted to speak with Shinji after their last conversation didn't end so well.

"I don't know why she wants to speak with him again after what happened, but she just told me to ask if you would speak with her." Aya explained.

"I'm willing to speak with Ceres, but I find it odd that she would want to speak with me again," Shinji expressed to Aya; after his last conversation with the Tennyo, he didn't want to engage in further conversation with the woman out of concern for the people she could've harmed if she had decided to force her will onto Aya. "Did she say why, by any chance?"

"No, only that she wanted to talk to you again."

Shinji nodded that he speak with Ceres again.

-x-

"…The damages to the Evas, the damages to NERV HQ," went one of the SEELE council members to the other members during a meeting to discuss the reliability of Gendo Ikari. "It will cost much to repair them before the next Angel arrives, if it ever does."

"First, they lose one of the pilots, and nearly lost everything else," added another member to the conversation, "and mainly because we didn't put a bell around Ikari's neck to make sure he didn't act out of line."

"No," went SEELE 01 to the rest, "the bell was there. It just didn't ring."

"Then what is the point of the bell?" Another member questioned. "If it doesn't do what it's supposed to, then that should be a sign that Ikari cannot be trusted to continue carrying out our objective."

"We've recently discovered that the missing pilot is none other than Ikari's own son, the pilot of Unit-01," revealed another member to the council. "Ikari didn't inform us of this."

"Ikari," went SEELE 01 again. "We must speak with him again, and if he doesn't divulge what we have discovered…then he will be dealt with accordingly…along with the bell that didn't ring."

-x-

This time, they were among the stars in their setting, something that was a change from their previous setting where they engaged in conversation.

Ceres, floating upside-down in front of Shinji, who seemed suspicious of the Tennyo and her reasons for wanting to speak to him again after their last chat didn't go so well.

"Ladies first, Ceres," he uttered, being a gentleman and allowing her the first go in the new conversation between them.

She nodded in acceptance and expressed, "You once asked me to speak to you like a normal person. There is nothing normal about either of us…yet you choose the life of a normal person…so I must oblige your request. You still seek the mana of Frenzia to preserve the life of Toya, who holds my mana within himself, yes?"

"That's right," Shinji answered her. "Once I inherited Frenzia's mana, I can give him the lifespan of a normal human, allowing him to have a future with Aya, and you can have your mana back and move on from this plane of existence."

"And…there is nothing, no form of intimidation, a threat to you or anyone else I can think of…that will force you to deviate from this objective of yours?"

"I refuse to be bullied by you or anyone else, Ceres. You asked me once if I wanted Aya for myself, and I told you no. Even if my friendship with her suddenly changed, her heart will always belong to Toya…and I will never come between them. I respect their relationship and want only for them to be happy. You can despise me all you want, but it won't change what I've decided upon."

"It's that important to you that he lives? That no matter what becomes of you, that everyone's happy, even though the other you that is beyond mortality, left to suffer in agony, is beyond such happiness?"

Shinji thought about his deceased counterpart, knowing that his suicide made him beyond any form of redemption, but couldn't deny the feeling that even he could be saved from the agony he spent a year in. While he might've given up on himself, there were those that cared about his fate that haven't let go of him just yet, even though they had their parting back at the hospital.

"If happiness and a right to life is denied to one, then they're denied to all," he told Ceres, believing in his choice of words, "but if they're granted to one, they must be granted to all. Everyone deserves to smile…to laugh…to pursue what makes them happy so long as it doesn't hurt anyone. I want to believe in there being happiness for everyone…without believing in someone else's beliefs."

"Believe in your own beliefs instead of inheriting one's own beliefs," Ceres expressed. "Many have done such."

"Some could say that the world is cruel for doing so…but some haven't seen much but the cruelty of others that believe in such a thing. I can't believe in it if I've only seen places that are affected by cruelty…and never seen places that, while affected by cruelty, can overcome it and show serenity that you don't see elsewhere, like how I've seen the beach and coastal town where my counterpart of this world lived…and still lives because he resides within me. I've seen the beauty…and it hasn't shown me any degree of cruelty that has hampered it. Even if it takes me a long time, this is what I want, Ceres."

Ceres tilted her head to the left, unsure of whether this boy was desperate to ensure a positive future or if he was just a different type of crazy and reckless. Still, she felt he deserved some measure of credit; even after being told that he could try for Aya's affections by simply letting another man suffer the inevitable, he didn't want the young woman like that, even if there was a chance between them. And his selfless need to ensure that nobody else suffered, even though it seemed impossible, because he was tired of others suffering. It almost made her want to smile if she had the humanity to do so without an agenda behind it.

"Is this your honest truth?" She asked him.

-x-

 _"Is this your honest truth?"_ They heard Ceres ask Shinji in the mirror.

Misato, Rei and Asuka all awaited Shinji's response, after hearing him say to Ceres all that he expressed about life and happiness and so on and his wanting to have his own belief and not follow someone else's.

" _Yes, it is,"_ they heard him answer her. _"Like I said before_ _…_ _if we can't be honest to ourselves, then how can we be honest to those around us? If you can't say the truth, in all its purity, then the truth becomes nothing more than words made into a lie for others to hear and wonder for themselves if it's true in its entirety."_

"Stupid idiot," Asuka called him.

Before Misato could say anything about her choice of words, Ceres had spoke up again.

" _You'll let me have my mana back_ _…_ _if I agree to let Toya live a normal life with Aya? Yes?"_ Ceres asked him, wanting to hear from him his response to that plea he had with her earlier.

" _That's right,"_ he told her. _"But that's if you agree to let Toya live."_

" _I'll do it, then."_

" _You mean it? You have to swear that you'll do it."_

" _I_ _…_ _I swear that I'll let Toya live a normal life with Aya."_

The ladies were surprised to see Ceres relent to Shinji. She was some sort of divine being, and she just relented to a fourteen-year-old boy from another world that was aiming to inherit the divine power from another divine being.

"Uh, what just happened?" Asuka asked.

"Ikari-Kun asked Ceres if she would permit this Toya to live a normal life with Aya," went Rei, "and she obliged the request this time."

"But why?" Misato questioned. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

To be continued…

A/N: I appreciate the reviews and private messages that _chilled monkey_ sends me about this story. I hope this story ends the way I would like for it to, even though I can't see the ending just yet.


	15. A Promise

Creation began on 04-08-16

Creation ended on 04-12-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: A Promise

"…So she's really going to do it, then?" Anzu asked Aya as they all stepped into the front of the Ikari house.

"That's what she said," the Mikage girl expressed, trying to be hopeful that Ceres wasn't going to try something cruel.

"If she does do this, it'll be the first good thing we've seen her do," went Yui, expressing her opinion about the Mikage family's Tennyo.

"Nervous, Shinji?" Aya heard Toya ask Shinji up in front of them.

"I'm always nervous," Shinji answered him. "I hope this all works out in the end."

"Same here."

As they all stood out in the front of the house (with Shinji deciding to stay close near Aya and Toya, just in the cautionary possibility that Ceres, even though she swore when he asked her, would go and renege on letting Toya have a life with Aya), Aya sighed and allowed Ceres to take over her body, replacing her facial features with the Tennyo's.

"Incredible," Anzu gasped silently, having never thought that such a transformation was possible with anyone of Tennyo blood.

"Exactly," agreed Yui, hoping that nothing awful would happen to the Mikage girl.

Ceres looked over at them, then at Shinji, who seemed to be tilting between fear, anger and anticipation, and then looked at Toya in front of her.

"Whenever you're ready, Toya," she told him.

Toya nodded and held out his hands. He focused on Ceres' hagoromo, willing himself to be separated from it so that Ceres could regain it. That was, after all, his initial purpose, to return it to her. But…he didn't want that purpose to be all that he was meant to be in this life he had. He wanted to be with Aya, to grow old with her, to have a family with her and so on.

His hands glowed…and something manifested in between them.

Shinji saw it, and it looked just as Frenzia had described it to him when she revealed what it looked like. The hagoromo of Ceres, exactly as it was the day it was taken from her, shined brightly with radiance in front of everyone. He thought for a moment that he could almost feel the vast power it held.

 _Don't be too consumed with excitement, Shinji,_ his dead self told him. _Do not let your guard down in front of Ceres._

Ceres, raising her hands out to accept the hagoromo, looked over at Shinji, who was no longer appearing angry, but was still in between fear and anticipation, and gave him a reassuring nod. As much as she could've gone against what she said, the boy made her swear, something that no one in her past made her do, and she knew what it meant to swear something. To swear meant to be bound by one's word, and one's word was a powerful force when you swear to something. And he made her swear, so, even if she wanted to deceive him and Aya, Ceres was bound to keep her word.

The hagoromo recognized its rightful owner and instantly returned to Ceres, reinvigorating her with its total sum of celestial energies.

Slowly, Toya felt weakened by the loss of the hagoromo, but clung to life for a while longer.

With the power restored to her, Ceres was able to separate herself from Aya, manifesting as an independent embodiment, dressed in a manner similar to what Frenzia had shown Shinji when a Tennyo wears their hagoromo, just as he had seen her in a previous vision of a future that was no more, and raised her left hand to Toya's chest. It only required a small fraction of her restored power, enough to give him the lifespan of a regular human, as they rarely lived beyond ninety years or so, but just to ensure Shinji that she wasn't cheating any of them.

Toya felt a little better as a small, wispy-like wave of energy was channeled from Ceres into himself, like he had been when he didn't know that he had it inside him.

The glowing ceased, and Ceres turned to face Shinji, who gave her a thankful smile.

"May your future be one of peace and happiness," Ceres told them, and then levitated up towards the sky, finally able to depart from the Earth.

"Goodbye, Ceres," Shinji expressed.

-x-

"It looks like she kept her word, after all, Asuka," Misato told Asuka as they saw this action through the mirror.

"And she really let him live, too," added Rei.

Asuka, who had doubted that Ceres would keep her word on letting this Toya guy live just because Shinji felt he deserved a life with this Aya girl that was her descendant, was surprised to be wrong by her belief that she wouldn't lie to Shinji. If it had been her, she wouldn't have honored her word at all if it meant getting back what was hers. But she had to remind herself that not everyone thought like she did, and therefore would've responded in different ways to the honoring of a pact.

" _How do you feel, Toya? Aya?"_ They heard Shinji ask the couple.

" _I feel alive,"_ Toya answered him.

" _I feel free,"_ added Aya. _"Thank you, Shinji. You did it."_

" _I…I told you I would do all that I could,"_ Shinji responded, though he probably felt that he didn't deserve much of the credit for what Ceres did.

Asuka saw her red-eyed counterpart approach Shinji and congratulate him for helping Aya and putting an end to the Mikage family matter involving Ceres.

"So, what now for him?" Asuka questioned.

"What now, indeed," added Rei.

-x-

He was no longer there, and this surprised Shinji. Even though Ceres had left, he had expected her spouse to still remain as a permanent resident within his soul. But Mikagi, who should've been bound to the large rock in the misty forest, was nowhere to be found.

"She took him with her when she left," he turned around and saw Frenzia. "After honoring her word to you that she would let Toya live, she removed Mikagi because, as much as she wanted to deny it, she couldn't escape the fact that she would always be responsible for what he became…just as I will always be responsible for the fate of my descendants that have suffered because of the dark side of my celestial energies that course through their veins."

"But…you will always feel for them, right?" Shinji asked her.

"Of course, she will," went his deceased counterpart, showing up behind her. "She wouldn't be who she is if she didn't feel for them."

"I'm sorry if I sounded disrespectful."

"It's okay," Frenzia told him. "And they're right, you know. Ceres might've let Toya lived like a normal human, but it was your victory today. You reached out to Ceres, and you didn't submit. You stood up to a daughter of the gods…with only your wits and your will to do the right thing. You have much to be proud of."

"You're climbing a metaphorical mountain to the peak of fulfillment," his dead self told him, cracking a smile. "You keep this up, you might actually do something I once thought was impossible."

"Which is?" He asked him.

"Break the curse of the Rage-filled Anchor, so that no more fifth or sixth generations of Ikari men end up victims to it."

Shinji nodded in agreement over that possibility; it would be nice for future generations to be free of such a curse.

"You may actually be close to breaking that curse, Shinji," Frenzia informed the living boy. "I don't know how, but you've changed so quickly in such a short time. Maybe it's because you're from another dimension, or because you faced someone who got corrupted by celestial power, even I'm not sure. But whatever the reason, you're a sign of hope. You're hope."

-x-

"…They've been walking in the sunlight for two hours now," went Yuuhi, referring to Aya and Toya, who were walking along the beach.

"So have we, Mr. Aogiri," said Yui to him, as they, Anzu, Aki, Asuka and Shinji were several feet behind the couple. "Let them enjoy themselves. It's not every day that you see something impossible become possible."

Shinji stopped walking and looked at the sunlight over the ocean. There was something about it right now that felt so…soul soothing.

"I take it you've never been to the beach as much as you should've?" Yuuhi asked him.

"I've never felt such a degree of calmness being near the beach before," he told him. "I like it, though."

Yuuhi then patted him on the back.

"You're an odd fellow, Shinji Ikari," he told him. "But I'm glad I met you that day Aya and Toya found you. You've changed everything. I never thought it was possible to do the things you did that changed everything we did, trying to put an end to something that happened from long ago. You're a miracle."

"I wouldn't call myself that, Yuuhi," Shinji told him. "I'm anything but a miracle. But I appreciate the compliment very much. There's only one thing left to deal with that should put an end to the discord that all families with celestial blood have been drawn into."

"Mikage International," Yuuhi sighed.

"Yeah. If I put an end to that, then, hopefully, the suffering that everyone's going through will stop."

"Care to use a hand in doing so, Shinji?" Aya asked him.

"Wouldn't going back there endanger you? I mean, I know that Ceres is now no longer an issue, so you should be able to return to your home now and try to get your life back in order."

"The more help you have against Kagami and Mikage International," went Aki to him, assisting in his sister's reason to want to help him, "the greater your chances are of putting an end to them without there being further suffering."

"Yet…whatever they could do to you could be severe," Shinji tried to persuade them from wanting to go back to that place that he could just feel was a death wish waiting to happen many times over.

"You don't have Frenzia's hagoromo yet," Asuka countered him with a different truth, "so it's safe to say that you'll be just as vulnerable as any of us are likely to be against Mikage International."

"And what kind of person would I be," added Yui, using her position as a parent in the equation, "if I let my son go up against people that could be just as dangerous as Ceres' spouse or an armed mugger that was assaulted over two years ago?"

"A bad one?" Anzu suggested.

Shinji sighed, seeing no way out of this.

-x-

"He's trying to keep them safe," went Rei, "but he knows he needs their help."

"It's crazy," stated Asuka, wishing that her red-eyed counterpart would just keep away from Shinji. "If they know what's good for them, they'll leave him."

"Except that they're all in danger, one way or another," said Misato, holding the mirror up as they saw Shinji accept their aid in dealing with this Mikage International. "He's going up against an enemy without an Eva…and is showing that he doesn't need it to help anyone."

" _If we do this,"_ went Shinji to them, _"then all of you need to be careful at all times. If any of you were to suddenly… Don't throw your lives away."_

"He's making them swear not to get killed?" Asuka questioned.

"I believe he's making them promise not to get killed over this secondary objective he feels he has to do," Rei corrected.

" _You be careful not to get killed yourself, Shinji,"_ went the red-eyed Asuka. _"We're not the only ones that are precious."_

"There is no way I would ever say that word," Asuka expressed, seriously hating her counterpart.

"That's the thing about alternate universes, Asuka," Misato informed her. "There are always alternates of ourselves that are very different from ourselves, either mildly or extremely."

"If I saw an alternate of you that didn't drink, that would be an extreme case."

-x-

Ring! Kagami picked up his phone and asked what the call was about.

"What did you say?" He asked again.

He then hung up and got up from his desk. What he had been informed of just now may have changed everything he was working on. If he played it right, his C-Genome project could still be salvaged, even if Ceres was gone.

-x-

Standing outside on the building across the street from the building that represented the Mikage family's business ventures, Shinji and the others prepared to enter Mikage International with the intention of putting an end to what Kagami was up to for good.

"Everyone ready to do this?" Shinji asked them.

"No," Yuuhi responded, though it didn't matter.

"Let's do this," went Asuka, and they all crossed the street.

To be continued…

A/N: They're going into the inferno, but can they get out of it?


	16. The Emotional Caress

Creation began on 04-17-16

Creation ended on 04-23-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: The Emotional Caress

A/N: Another look into the past of Shinji and Asuka of the Ceres universe.

More than half the time of any number of days or weeks, Shinji was the only occupant of his house. His mother spent her days over at some genetics facility in the town (or closer towards a city) and his grandmother was around some academy she worked at. It was during times like this that he invited over Asuka. Or, more accurately, she spent her hours and days with him.

 _Not many people can live the way I live,_ he thought, taking out his weekly laundry from inside the dryer, feeling relieved that his unnecessary anger hadn't taken over again like it had the previous day, as it left him a small cut on his right cheek. "Hmm?"

Sniff. He smelled something that interfered with the scent of clean clothes, and it smelled almost good, but something about it made it hard to accept in its entirety.

 _What has she done now?_ He wondered, setting the basket on top of the dryer and stepping out of the basement to go to the kitchen.

In there, right on the stove, a small pot of bubbling, yellowish liquid was simmering.

"Am I even sure I want to know what that is?" He questioned to the young girl beside the stove.

"Huh?" The redhead went, turning to face him. "Ah. I thought I'd try something different, Shinji."

Asuka had caught more than his nose's attention when she said that. She had gotten his full attention due to the way she was dressed right now. Wearing blue short shorts and a pink top, revealing her flawless arms, legs and waist, the girl left him captivated.

"It has a strong smell," Shinji told her, referring to what she was working on. "What did you put in it?"

"The flavor was weak, so I threw in apple slices, lemon juice, barbecue sauce…and some of that bottle over there," she answered, pointing to a wine bottle that his grandmother left out.

"Sometimes, I'm glad my grandmother isn't here to see you, otherwise, I don't know what she'd do," Shinji told her, picking up the half-empty wine bottle, reading the label. "We might get hangovers later this evening."

"Would that be a bad thing?" Asuka asked, turning off the stove.

"Only if the head hurts too much and you can't remember anything from earlier," he explained, sitting at the table where the rest of their dinner was set.

Asuka poured his bowl of the concoction before pouring her own and sitting across the table from him.

 _On the surface, it seems like my family is rather estranged, as it is only my mother, my grandmother and myself. I never knew my father or grandfather, but that hasn't really bothered me as much as my distant relationships with the two women of my family. So I get away from it with my relationship with Asuka Soryu-Ayanami, my childhood friend, my classmate, my everything to my heart. But Asuka and I…have a secret that we keep from my mother and grandmother. The extent of our relationship, something that started on Mother's Day just a month ago, and is now something we can't stop._

As shinji dunk his bread roll into the soup, he expressed that, despite having an initially-bad smell, it had a good taste.

"Thank you, Shinji," Asuka praised him, eating her soup-covered bread roll. "I tried my hardest just for you tonight."

Shinji smiled back at her.

 _And it's during times like this, whenever I'm with her…that I can forget about my family's curse…and everything else._

-x-

During the intermission between class rotations, Shinji found himself, during the last intermission of the day, standing against the banisters of one of the stairways, trying to get over some disrespect he had gotten from a male student about how estranged his relationship with his mother was. It was just one of those things he wanted to bury and forget about. His relationship with his mother, no matter how strained or estranged it was, was his business.

Creak. He looked down at his right hand, which had gripped the banister, made of painted steel, and saw that he had crunched it mildly, calmly letting go of it; there were times where he didn't know he was able to damage inanimate objects with his bare hands.

It made him sigh in knowing that if it had been something more than a thing, like a person… It was a weight he didn't want on his conscience.

"Are you okay?" He heard someone say to him, and he looked to his left, seeing Asuka, leaning against the banister beside him.

"Asuka…" He sighed, unsure of how to respond to her question.

"I heard you nearly punched a guy in his gut last period," she said; it was mostly the gossiping of other girls, but Asuka preferred to hear the truth from the person directly involved in the matter.

"Do you think I should've done so?" He finally asked her.

"No…and yes," she answered him. "No, because once you start, you may not stop. And yes, because he had no right to disrespect you like that."

"I'm not the only one that has a lack of a relationship with their mother in this town."

Asuka then decided to try and change the subject in order to get his mind off the issue.

"Say, do you ever think of anything…perverted when you're alone?" She asked him.

"What?" He reacted to her question. "No. No, I don't."

She turned around and crossed her legs, looking out the window at the schoolyard.

"That's a pity," she expressed.

"Why so?" He asked, and she held onto the banister as she lowered to her bottom, looking up at him.

"I think of you," she explained why. "Almost all the time. Out on the pavement…over in the halls…during classes…even right now. I think of you…and all that you mean to me."

Shinji suddenly shuddered and tugged at the collar of his shirt.

"Please," he pleaded, "don't tease me, Asuka."

"It's not teasing," she told him, her honesty weighing her every word. "Rei told me that her mother, Mine, will be home later today. Are you free after school?"

"Yeah, why?"

She rose back up and closed the small gap of space in between their faces.

"I want to be alone with you," she revealed.

"But…is that really something we should do?" He questioned mildly; it wasn't that he didn't mind being alone with her, but he didn't want her to get into trouble with anyone that thought she should've waited until she got married to do what they were doing, even though there were others that did what they were doing all the time. "During our school days, I mean?"

She kissed him instead of answering him.

"Who says we shouldn't?" She answered with a question. "See you after school."

As she ran off to her last class, he was reminded that he needed to get to his last class, as well.

"You and Asuka are awfully close," he heard a female voice say to him, and he looked up the steps leading to the fourth floor, seeing Asuka's foster sister, Rei Ayanami, looking down at him. "So close that she spends as much of her time with you than she does at home."

It was always something about the way she looked at him and spoke towards him that made Shinji suspect she had something against him, like a bias or vendetta. He wasn't sure what it was or why it was so, but it made him defensive against her.

"All I'm saying, Shinji, is that you shouldn't take whatever it is you have with her for granted," Rei explained. "People can't stay together forever in life."

When she walked away, Shinji was left questioning himself about what it was that this blue-eyed lady had against him being with Asuka.

-x-

The gym equipment storage closet always had a bad odor, something Shinji found out from Asuka because she spent more time at P.E. than he did. So he went there after school was let out, expecting to see her, but found the place empty, all save the equipment that had been put away for the day. Then again, it was only ten minutes after school was over, so he would wait for her to show up.

 _Should I ask her about Rei?_ He wondered to himself, sitting beside a pile of gym mats. _She must suspect something with her._

Creak! The door to the storage closet opened up, bathing the small space he occupied with sunlight, and he saw Asuka, in her gym uniform, holding a large sack of balls, looking exhausted, but having a smile on her face.

"Sorry I'm late," she told him. "Did you wait too long?"

"Um, no, it's fine," he responded, and she closed the door and dragged the sack over to a large basket.

She then came over and sat with him on the mats.

"When I volunteered to return the balls, everyone else praised me like I was some hero," she told him. "They really can't stand the bad smell in here."

"You're the only scent my nose picks up in here right now," he responded and started nuzzling the left side of her neck with his nose and mouth as his left hand found its way to her waist.

"You, too," she moaned, her right hand on his pants. "Your sweat and breath."

Their other hands found each other's backs as they fell onto the top mat.

Shinji removed his uniform coat while Asuka reached under blue shirt and unhooked her bra.

"I'm sure I'm all sweaty down there," she informed Shinji as he slowly removed her panties after removing her gym shorts. "The sun was hot and I was running faster on the track…and thinking about you throughout the class. Oh…ohh…"

She felt his breath on her skin down there…and his tongue and lips. She gripped the mat with her hands as best she could, exhilarated from her lover's boldness.

As Shinji held her legs as he continued to taste her, he thought back to the first time they did this type of foreplay. It wasn't something they found out about from available sources like the Internet. They just…let their instincts and inexperience show them what they enjoyed and what they didn't. And this was something he found Asuka liked a week ago.

"Shinji…Shinji… I want you," he heard her say to him, nearly exhausted, and rose up in front of her.

"Asuka," he uttered in the darkness, almost frightened by the tone of his voice. "I'm lost in the dark. Where are you?"

In the shadows, she reached up to his left hand…and led him towards her.

"I'm right here," she answered him. "I'm always in front of you."

"Here?" He made sure he had her permission.

"Yeah," she responded, feeling him nudging at her, "just like that. Aah!"

"Aah!" He grunted, now atop her…and inside her. "Are you alright, Asuka?"

"We're joined once again, Shinji," she told him, panting from the effort it took for him to join with her.

"Asuka…"

"You can start moving…inside me now…as much as you want to."

Shinji proceeded to thrust into her. It took him a lot of effort because he wasn't as endowed as he often wanted himself to be, despite his body being a record of injuries that stemmed from his dark heritage. But thanks to Asuka, he was improving.

"It's…so hot and tight," he grunted, rocking her beneath him, "I can't help but put it all in."

"It's all good, Shinji," she encouraged him, holding his shoulders. "It's…really good."

She felt her walls tightening around him…and her hold on his shoulders transferring to the small space by his nape.

"Asuka…I'm…" His voice was unable to finish his sentence.

"Shinji…I'm soaring," she told him. "I'm soaring! I'm soaring!"

"Asuka!" He gasped, seeing white.

"Shinji!" She gasped, seeing the cosmos.

They clutched each other as their orgasm came. It lasted for a little over a minute or so, and Shinji fell to the left side of the mat.

"Whoa…whoa…" Shinji panted.

Asuka held his right hand and looked at him.

"I hope we're together forever, Shinji," she told him. "Always together."

"Yeah," he agreed with her, but was then reminded of what he was told earlier by Rei.

" _People can't stay together forever in life,"_ she had told him.

 _Is that really true?_ He wondered.

-x-

It seemed fortunate that Asuka was home because Shinji's grandmother, Anzu, was home, so the young man had company for the time being.

"Say, Shinji, did you have a friend over here recently?' She asked him during dinner.

"Just Asuka, why?" He answered and asked back.

"Just wondering how you were able to cope with your mother and I not being around as much as we should, that's all."

"She…offered to spend time with me one day, and she spends her rare days with me here."

"She…spends nights here, as well?"

Shinji set his chopsticks down and questioned, "Is that wrong?"

Anzu defended with, "No, it's not wrong, Shinji. It'd just be a nice thing that she kept you company as much as possible."

If only the elder lady knew that her only grandson wasn't in another one of his unpredictable rage attacks, she wouldn't be sitting so far from him at the table.

"She's the only friend I have," he told her, "and the only person I know that puts up with me."

Anzu realized that this conversation had hit a sour point for Shinji; ever since he turned eleven, he was the unfortunate victim of their family's celestial heritage, and neither of the adult women in his life knew how to help him deal with the problem. And her daughter, despite some attempts to pressure her into just being around her son, rarely did so and spent most of her time away from him because of the rage that takes hold of him from time to time.

"But it's okay, really," Shinji told her. "It's…nothing to get angry over. We all have our responsibilities. I'm not a baby, anymore, Grandmother. You don't need to hold my hand."

He then finished his dinner and turned in for the night.

 _It's true, you're not a baby, anymore,_ she thought, _but you still need love. You get starved for it, you'll likely try to find it elsewhere._

If only she had known that he had already found love somewhere else. While it wasn't the type of love he had originally sought after, it was a love he cherished because it was true.

-x-

For some reason, Asuka couldn't find her bath joyous like the previous times. She suspected it was because she felt something was wrong over at Shinji's house.

Knock-knock. Someone outside the bathroom caught her attention.

"Asuka," it was Rei, "you got a missed call from that Ikari boy."

"Thank you," she responded, and laid back in the tub.

"I bet he was calling to ask you to spend the night over," Rei had suggested.

"Says you, Rei," she retorted, though that wouldn't have been declined.

"Is he your boyfriend or something?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business."

"I saw some of the other girls eyeing him like he was up for grabs."

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm sure Shinji's not interested in seeing anyone."

"How could you possibly know that…unless he were seeing someone?"

Looking up at the ceiling, Asuka expressed, "Because I'm the only girl that he actually talks to. Whether out on the town…or at school."

"Don't let something good pass you by, then." Rei told her.

"What are you…"

"You two go well together," Rei explained. "You and Shinji. That's all I'm saying."

-x-

"…No, all I'm saying is that…he may be becoming distant from us…and straying towards someone else," Anzu told her daughter over the phone. "It's not wrong to be concerned, but you should take a deeper interest in his interests."

"But I'm sure I'll find the right type of medication for him to ensure that he won't…" Yui spoke, but stopped when she expected her mother to speak up in response.

"Except we tried with the previous pills that he only takes once a week now. He might as well be taking Skittles because they don't work on what he has…because we're treating it like it's a medical condition. It's just his heritage, his legacy…and it's not going away, no matter how much we want it to. We can try all we want until we're mentally exhausted, but… Yui, if it's not broken, don't try to fix it… And if it can't be fixed…then you shouldn't try to."

She could hear her daughter sighing on the other end and then heard her respond, "I can't believe that just yet, Mother. Just like I can't believe in any of this…this ancestral curse that only turns up in the men of every fifth or sixth generation being something that can't be handled through science."

"Yui, there will always be things that science can't do. Sometimes, it can solve some problems, but not this. It can't solve this."

-x-

Sometimes, unbeknownst to even Asuka, Shinji would sneak out of his house and go to the beach while most of the town was asleep. And tonight was no exception. He stood on one of the rocks that gave the town its name, and looked down at his right hand, holding a empty bottle of pills his mother had him take. They were just a variation of antidepressant medication that, unlike the previous variation his mother had him try, caused him some mild headaches over the feelings of fatigue and bloodshot eyes that lasted for several days. But like the previous pills, they didn't do much for what she felt was a problem he had that he had no control over at all.

 _If it's not broken, don't try to fix it, huh?_ He thought, putting the empty bottle in his coat pocket on his left side. _If I'm not really broken, then why must I even take pills? Aren't I supposed to be like other boys my age? Aren't I supposed to be…normal? If normal is even what I can be._

But he knew one thing was for certain, and that was that he wasn't going to take any more pills for his mother. He needed to be unbound by a measure or aspect of science that simply wasn't helping him at all but making him sick.

The waves barely touched the sand in front of the large rock as he sat down on it and watched the waves coming and receding.

-x-

When Asuka stopped by Shinji's house this morning, she was surprised to see his grandmother answering the door instead of him.

"Good morning, Ms. Soryu-Ayanami," Anzu greeted the young woman.

"Missus Ikari?" She gasped. "Good morning. I was wondering if Shinji was ready to go to school…if he hasn't left already."

"I'm sorry, but he can't go to school today."

"What? Why not?"

"He had another bad reaction to a bunch of pills he was taking. He's developed a bit of fever, so he'll be here until he gets better."

Asuka then asked to see him, and went up to his room, finding him drenched in sweat and his eyes half-opened, indicating that he was conscious to a degree.

"Remind me to tell my mother that I'm done with the pills she insists that I take," he uttered, and then coughed. "I'm no addict."

-x-

"…You're leaving school early?" Rei asked Asuka, who was packing her school bag up with her assignment papers from her classes.

"Yeah, that's right," she explained. "Anzu told the teachers and the principal that Shinji would be out sick and that I'd be over to watch after him while she's seeing his mother. Right now, he's probably alone and in need of company. Plus, Anzu mentioned that it was necessary that he try to eat something prepared by someone else. If he tries to make something himself, he'll likely get worse."

"I heard his mother was making him take pills, but him having a bad reaction to them is messed up. And, what, you volunteered or did his grandmother force you into it?"

"Nobody forced me, Rei. I offered to help…and Shinji trusts me."

Checking her watch, the redhead then dashed out of the classroom before the bell rang to signify the ending of the lunch period.

"Asuka, you…" Rei tried to say, but her foster sister was already gone. "Why do I even try?"

-x-

Anzu hated the stale smell of the research lab her daughter worked at. She'd rather be anywhere else that had a different stench, good or foul. There was always something about a science facility that seemed like the lower version of a hospital.

"…So Asuka Soryu-Ayanami's looking after him until I get back later today," she told Yui, who was looking at the empty pill bottle she had brought in. "I really need to insist that you stop with the pills. I understand that you mean well, but I fear that these may actually…do worse than make him sick."

"You mean, you think they'll actually kill him," Yui stated; she didn't even need to hear her mother say the exact words. "That's not what I want."

"Yui, you should just talk to him. Your relationship with him is already strained enough. Even my relationship with him has become strained. It doesn't have to get any more complicated than I already feel it has become."

"I once told you that when I saw him under the influence of the rage…I saw his face…and I think back to what Father did."

"It's water under the bridge, Yui. We can't undo what transpired, but we can ensure something worse than that doesn't echo it. The sooner you bond with Shinji, the better you'll both be for it. He's nowhere near like that man. Maybe not even like your father, but there is a kindness and caring that makes up for his unpredictable outbursts of anger. Even Asuka sees what most others don't see in him."

Yui then sighed and threw the empty bottle in a trash bin with a bio-hazard symbol…along with another bottle full of pills that she just finished developing for her son; she was taking what she had seen as a large gamble on what her mother had told her.

"We should go by the store on the way home," she suggested. "Who knows, maybe some chicken soup will boost his recovery."

"Now, that's a mother talking," Anzu praised her.

-x-

"…Anzu said you like ginger tea," Asuka told Shinji, holding a small cup of said beverage in front the ill boy in bed.

"Thank you," he responded to her.

She set the cup down on his bed stand and sat down in front of him.

"You don't need to sit and watch over me," he told her, his eyes a little red as he looked up at her.

"No, it's okay, really," she expressed.

"Heh. You sound like a concerned parent."

"That's because you're a child made unwell."

Shinji tried to reach for the cup, but his left hand barely made it over his chest.

"I'll drink it later," he informed her, since the tea was prepared over the stove, so it would still be lukewarm by the time he was strong enough to pick up the cup.

As Shinji closed his eyes and tried to rest up, Asuka looked at his forehead, not as drenched in sweat as it had been earlier in the morning. She slowly brought up her right hand to gently caress his face, but hesitated from doing so. The sight of his less-than-peaceful expression made her wonder if such an act was even right at this time.

Shinji got a whiff of a pleasant aroma and opened his eyes, seeing Asuka's hand close to his face.

 _Was she about to touch me?_ He wondered.

"Sorry," she apologized to him, and sat back down in the chair.

"I would've welcomed your caress," he told her.

"Then I'd be taking advantage of you in your time of need."

"It's not taking advantage…if it's welcomed."

"What have I been teaching you?"

A silence between them lasted for a minute or so…until Asuka decided to share with Shinji something she found out last night.

"Rei told me something that makes me suspect she knows about our relationship," she said to him. "She said we go well together…and that I shouldn't let something good pass me by."

Shinji sighed and responded, "That's almost similar to something she told me shortly after you left me on the stairs yesterday. She said that we're awfully close…and that you spend more time with me than you do at home. And she said something else, too. She said, _"People can't stay together forever in life"_. I wasn't sure what she meant by that or if she even knows about us."

"Maybe she does know…or at least suspects. But if she does know, I wonder if she's told her mother?"

"I could tell her that I forced you," she heard Shinji say, "that I threatened you. Any repercussions would fall entirely on me."

"No, don't do that. I'd probably kept away from you…and I don't want that. And what she probably meant by people not being able to stay together forever in life…refers to our inherit mortality. We're vulnerable, fragile, susceptible to unpredictability. If our legs get broken beyond mending capabilities, then they get amputated. If our organs start to fail us and there's no donor organs in handy, then our fates are pretty much shortened. She claims to be an expert of what she calls the dynamics of fatality. I wouldn't call her that, though. An amateur, maybe, but not an expert. Anyhow, no matter whatever happens, I want to be with you. You should always be with the one you love." Asuka said to him.

"Heh-heh. The dynamics of fatality, huh? That's so original."

She was about to agree with him on that, but then he started coughing a little bit.

"Okay," he finally calmed down. "Laughing is a no-no while sick."

Asuka agreed with him on that…and then reached down to caress his left cheek.

"Oh, my gosh, Shinji," she uttered, pulling back her hand, the palm soaked in his sweat. "You're sweating so much."

Shinji struggled to get up, revealing that his chest was drenched in sweat.

"Isn't that a good thing?" He questioned. "That should mean that I'm recovering a little. I think I'm well enough for anything you wanna do."

Asuka was certain that he was nowhere near well enough for anything other than the tea in the cup. And…they did it yesterday when there was no chance of them getting caught.

"Shinji…your mother and grandmother will be home soon," she informed him. "Surely, there's no time for that."

But Shinji held her in an embrace that, while sweaty, wasn't unwelcome by her.

"Please, Asuka?" He pleaded, and she found herself unable to fight this, and held him back.

-x-

"We overdid it, Yui," Anzu told her daughter as they stepped out of the grocery store, carrying two bags each, filled with cans of chicken soup. "We probably only needed enough for a week, not enough for three weeks."

"Oh, it's fine, really," Yui countered. "Besides, you said Ms. Soryu-Ayanami was over, so she should have some herself. As a precaution. We don't want her catching Shinji's illness now, do we?"

"I'm not that worried about her getting a fever. I just wanted to make sure she was clear for the measles before I was okay with her being near Shinji. I read those articles about how some families in the USA refused to immunize their children against the measles, and how some of those kids didn't pull through because of those parents that chose to deny them the vaccine."

"You take vaccination seriously. Then again, I suppose you have to, but do you really need to do so with this girl Shinji spends time with?"

"It's actually one of the things I find myself willing to take seriously. Everything else with those two is their own business, which I won't interfere with."

Yui then stopped walking and looked at her mother; there was something she now needed to get off her back and ask her about.

"Mother, why don't you tell me what it is about this girl and Shinji that has you like this?" She asked her. "Maybe it's something I should be concerned about."

"It might be nothing," Anzu stated.

"Still, I should probably be concerned."

Anzu stopped and turned to face her.

"Well, this is just hypothetical, nothing but a possibility," she stated again, "but…what if Ms. Soryu-Ayanami…was really Shinji's lover?"

This, however much of a hypothetical that it was, had surprised Yui to hear her mother say such.

"That…that's insane, Mother," she told her, but couldn't deny such a possibility, no matter how much it made her want to disbelieve.

-x-

"…Asuka," Shinji sighed, holding Asuka in his bed, "you're so nice and cool to hold onto."

"And you're so warm, Shinji," Asuka responded under him, holding him after she discarded her clothes to the floor. "It feels good here, too."

She opened her legs and felt his left leg slip in between them as she kissed him.

-x-

"I mean, I've seen her a few times whenever I fill in for you to see Shinji at school, and I've found that anyone would admire her," Anzu informed Yui of Asuka. "She makes good grades, probably spends as much time as she can with Shinji, maybe even tutors him or something…and the girl's quite attractive to look at. Young men Shinji's age and older would fall head over heels to be in her presence while other girls would feel envious."

-x-

"Come to me," Asuka pleaded, holding onto Shinji's pillow. "Come to me, Shinji."

Then, she felt Shinji press into her from behind as his hands were either side of her.

"Aaah!" She gasped, feeling him slowly slide inside. "You're so hot! You're hotter than usual, Shinji!"

-x-

"…Then…maybe it's a good thing," Yui told Anzu, looking out at the ocean water in front of the beach. "Plus, they're too young to be engaging in such acts. It'd be too much to process if they were lovers instead of just being classmates and good friends."

"Still," Anzu responded, looking at the beach herself, "one can't deny the possibility that their friendship can evolve into romance."

That was something Yui found difficult to believe. Mainly because of her past relationships with various men.

-x-

"Aaurgh…aaurgh…it…feels good," Shinji groaned as he continued to thrust into Asuka.

"Me…too," she panted. "Shinji…it feels so good. Your body…your lips…even your voice… You're amazing, Shinji."

"Asuka," Shinji stated, slowing down. "Asuka…ugh!"

He pulled out…and pulled her towards him.

"Wah!" Asuka gasped, and felt him reentered. "Aah!"

"Asuka…I'm all the way in," he told her, positioning her legs around his waist. "Asuka…I'm so deep within you."

Looking up at him, she responded, "I can feel you all the way in me, Shinji."

He thrust into her again and again.

"Asuka… Asuka!" He panted. "This makes me so happy, being able to do this with you!"

"It makes me happy, too, being able to do this with you." She responded, and they kissed, just as she felt her walls tightening around him. "Give it to me. All of it, Shinji."

"I'm…gonna…burst…"

And then, they both achieved their climax.

"Aaaaah!" They gasped, seeing white fire all around them, and then Shinji fell onto Asuka's chest, drained of his stamina.

Asuka, exhausted herself, looks up at her out-of-it lover, and chuckles as she holds him while they rested for a short while.

"Hey, Shinji?" She spoke up a while later, holding his left hand.

"What is it, Asuka?" He responded, looking at her, sounding a little better.

"I feel like I had been waiting for you for a long time, dreaming about you before we ever met. Even after the night we harmonized."

Shinji was puzzled by her choice of words. He didn't understand what she meant by that.

"Even now," she said, using her other hand to caress his face, "it still feels like I'm in a dream. A very happy dream…with you being the largest part of it."

He smiled at her…and she smiled back.

"Shinji," they heard a voice from downstairs, "we're home!"

-x-

Anzu and Yui had returned home and walked into the kitchen, setting the bags of canned soup on the counter.

"I'll get started on a can," Anzu told her daughter, taking out a can. "You go check on Shinji and Asuka, see how they're doing."

"Okay," Yui agreed with her, and left to go upstairs. "Shinji, it's your mother. Are you alright?"

She stopped at his closed door, knocked on it before opening it.

"Shinji?"

Shinji, wiping his forehead as he placed his empty cup down, looked up at his mother.

"Hmm?" He responded. "Hello, Mother."

She saw how sickly he must've been earlier this morning, and how he appeared to be recovering from the fever. It made her consider, more than ever, that it was better to stop forcing him to take medication that he simply didn't even need.

"How are you feeling?" She asked him.

"A little better, now that you mention it," he answered.

Yui then noticed that he was by himself in the room, and he hadn't been the only one in the house all day. There was a backpack by his closet that wasn't his.

"Where's Ms. Soryu-Ayanami?" She asked.

"Asuka? Why, she told me she was going to the bathroom."

"The bathroom?"

-x-

Unwilling to risk her getting caught, Shinji had Asuka run into the bathroom to get dressed so they could avoid a hassle from his relatives. Inside the bathroom, she quickly redressed and made use of the sink to hide the sweat that had permeated the air through their lovemaking earlier (something that Shinji made sure to leave the window open to mask and eliminate the smell).

"Miss Soryu-Ayanami?" She heard Shinji's mother outside.

Knock-knock. She heard her knocking.

"Yes, ma'am?" She responded.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

"I trust that Shinji wasn't too much trouble for you, was he?"

"Oh, he was no trouble. No trouble at all."

Then, Asuka flushed the toilet to give the impression that she had used it and washed her hands again.

"He's actually…quite endearing," Asuka told Yui after opening the door, meeting the woman.

"Really? Endearing?" Yui expressed, and looked back towards her son's room. "Yeah…he is endearing. You're absolutely right about that."

Asuka returned to his room and sat by his bed as he laid back down on his pillow.

"Well...we'll be having chicken soup later on," Yui informed the pair. "Asuka, would you care for some? If it's alright with your guardian, that is?"

"Yes, of course. Thank you." Asuka accepted.

-x-

It was late, so Asuka spent the night over. Unfortunately, something unexpected happened with the redhead.

 _I can't believe I caught his cough,_ she thought, laying on a spare futon in a guest room.

Creak. She heard the door to the room open and light footsteps entering, but since she was facing away from the door, she had no clue as to who it was.

"Asuka?" She heard Shinji's voice, and turned to face him, seeing him looking a little more better than earlier, holding a damp cloth in his hands.

He placed the cloth on her forehead and sat beside her in a nearby chair.

"Thanks, Shinji," she sighed, smiling.

"I'm sorry," he apologized to her. "You caught my bad cough."

"It's okay," she assured him. "Hey, Shinji?"

"Hmm?"

"No matter what the future brings…please, stay with me."

His heart must've missed a beat when he heard her say that, but he was glad to hear her say it. He didn't know anyone else that wasn't related to him that was willing to put up with his unpredictable bouts of rage caused by his heritage. So he smiled and nodded his head in the positive.

"Yeah," he agreed with her, and then lowered his head to meet hers, hoping to steal at least one last kiss from her before she fell to sleep.

Asuka kissed him back and locked her right hand with his left hand…and reached for his side with her left hand. She didn't want him to go just yet…and she didn't feel all that sleepy right now.

Shinji got on top of her, looked down at her…and kissed her again.

"Did you lock the door?" She asked him.

"I did," he answered her, and there was a silence that continued throughout the night.

To be continued…

A/N: I didn't intend on getting to this until I started on the chapter called _Live Ghosts_ , but when I tried, I had to get started on this instead. I wanted to expand a little more on the relationship between the Shinji and Asuka of the Ceres universe and how entangled they had become before C. Shinji took his own life to keep from killing C. Asuka. And then, there's the conversations between Anzu and C. Yui regarding C. Shinji and the Rage-filled Anchor. Anzu has come to accept that it was something modern medicine couldn't treat because it wasn't an illness, and C. Yui was forced to accept that no matter what she tried, it was something she couldn't use science to overcome…and that she needed to be a mother, not a scientist. So what do all of you think? Reviews and PMs are greatly appreciated.


	17. Live Ghost

Creation began on 04-12-16

Creation ended on 05-30-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Live Ghost

A/N: I've decided that this chapter will be a shorty.

"…So, you're Shinji Ikari," Kagami expressed, greeting the group that stepped into his office a while later. "Welcome."

Shinji, however, was not the least bit enthused to meet Aya and Aki's cousin. From what Aki explained to him, the guy had been obsessed with Ceres as the ideal woman of existence and based off of what Frenzia and Yui explained of what had been done in the past and attempted in the present for many years, this C-Genome project of his was as every bit as empty as any demented madman's agenda.

"We finally meet in person," he responded to Kagami. "I wish I was remotely glad to meet you."

Kagami looked at the rest of the group, at Aya and Aki, at these people that were likely affiliated with Shinji than the twins. He wondered what their reason was for being here.

"I wish I could actually speak for him and say that it's an honor and a privilege to be here," went Yui, "but then, I'd be lying to myself."

"Same here," added Anzu; neither woman was willing show Mikage International any measure of acceptance after what happened the last few days.

"My apologies, and you two are?" Kagami asked them.

"Yui."

"Anzu."

"And what's your relationship with Shinji?"

"Nothing that would help you," Shinji cut in; he didn't want to endanger his dead counterpart's relatives, no matter what possible interest Kagami could have in them. "I've been informed of your interest towards those with Tennyo blood in their veins, and you sent some men and Aki, when he was possessed, to my home and caused some problems that didn't go well for your men. Now, whatever interest you have for me, I'm not enthralled at the idea of being manipulated or sought after because of something I'm capable of doing. Not many people like it when their lives are turned upside-down, regardless of whoever feels they need to be turned upside-down. So…what exactly is your interest in turning these lives upside-down?"

"Why, saving mankind's future, of course," Kagami answered him.

"Except what you're viewing as an attempt to save people is flawed," went Yui. "The ideal of a perfect race is nothing more than a fantasy that deserves to be forgotten."

"Nobody should have their lives be determined by their genes," added Asuka.

"If people continue to live as they have for many generations, we're doomed," Kagami explained.

"Maybe so," went Aya to her cousin, "but it's their decision. You can't take away their decision to decide how they can live."

Then, as if most of them were thinking the same idea, Aya, Aki, Toya, Yui, Anzu, Yuuhi and Asuka turned to leave the office, leaving Shinji alone with Kagami.

"She's right, you know," Shinji told him. "You can't decide how people can live."

Out in the hall, as they left towards the lobby, Asuka was hoping that Shinji knew what he was doing, since this was his idea to begin with.

-x-

"…So…you want to make a deal?" Kagami asked Shinji, who suggested an attempt to agree on something that could be mutual for the both of them.

"I wouldn't have suggested it otherwise," Shinji responded. "As much as I don't agree with what you're doing, my concern is the well-being of the Tennyo descendants. Must you really need so many…when it would probably be better for you have one that is clearly stronger than any number of them…and is willing to commit to your agenda so long as they're cut loose?"

"You…in favor of the ones already here?"

"I've seen what the future was like when I had met Aya…and nothing I saw was pleasant. I've seen other descendants, and they don't end on happy notes. You're just going to get them killed, eventually."

"And why should I believe you?"

Shinji sighed and sat in the chair beside him in front of Kagami's desk.

"I met Ceres, and she wasn't going to help you at all," he told her. "She kept secrets from everyone, making it hard to understand her…and hard for me to actually trust her. A woman obsessed with wanting back what was taken from her can make those around her see her as being difficult to ever understand because of her unwillingness to be open about her."

"And yet, you dealt with her and the Progenitor," Kagami expressed, almost sounding impressed by him and his achievements. "You, a descendant of a Tennyo, were able to deal with a Tennyo and her spouse. I doubt that you didn't require much effort."

"I…it was a group effort," he clarified; he didn't want all the credit for something he had received aid from the others to handle. "There is no 'I' in 'team'. Nobody, not even a descendant of a Tennyo, is strong on their own, no matter what they believe."

He meant every word of what he said. Even if had abilities similar to what the Angels were capable of, he wouldn't have felt that he was all-powerful or to be admired.

"And yet, you believe yourself to be all that the C-Genome project requires?"

"So long as I'm willing. So my deal is this: Cut the other descendants loose and let them go home…and I'll show you that I'm all that you need. You renege, you so much as go after more descendants, despite my cooperation…and I will show you the error of your decisions…and I don't want that."

Shinji had to admit to himself and his deceased counterpart and Frenzia that he lacked the capacity to actually threaten anyone, so he relied on the subtle influence of his dead self to add emotion to his threat in hopes that Kagami would feel the necessary effects of the threat.

"You're threatening me?" Kagami asked him.

"It's a warning," he told him.

-x-

"He can't possibly believe this guy's going to agree to that," said Asuka to Misato and Rei.

"He's trying to bluff," Misato clarified; she could see that Shinji wasn't trying to be cruel, but felt that he would if this Kagami chose to go back on the deal Shinji was making.

" _Okay, I accept your terms,"_ they heard Kagami say to him. _"I'll see to it that the C-Genomes currently here are returned to their homes."_

"Whoa," Asuka gasped quietly. _Stupid idiot!_

-x-

As Shinji was being led by a security guard to a room prepared for him, he noticed how several of the women present in the hall all had similar appearances to each other and Ceres. He never saw a bunch of women that looked so much alike as any of them. His memories of and interactions with Frenzia were the only woman that actually stood out among these women.

"Yeah, take a long look and breathe it in, kid," the guard told him. "They all look irresistible and want to lead you towards temptation."

Shinji stopped and expressed, "They're beautiful, but that's true for all women, sir. As for temptation… That's likely only for those that actually want to be led to it."

"You've changed much of everything now."

But before Shinji resumed following the guard, something new caught his attention. It was unlike what he felt earlier when he saw the other ladies that were being escorted elsewhere. And it gripped him.

A woman, probably in her late-teens or early-twenties, with purple hair. She had her back facing him further down the hall, but when she turned, it threw Shinji's perception off. Her eyes, despite seeming deprived of any life, were identical to hers, along with her face. The ears, the nose, the mouth, she was a dead ringer for Misato Katsuragi!

Unlike the other ladies, however, she was being led down the same hall as Shinji was.

-x-

Asuka and Rei looked away from the mirror and at Misato, who seemed as shocked as Shinji must've been.

"She looks just like you, only younger," Asuka told her.

" _Excuse me, but who is that woman down there?"_ Shinji's voice was heard asking. _"The one with the purple hair."_

" _That's the thirteenth C-Genome subject,"_ the guard's voice responded. _"Misato Katsuragi of the Katsuragi Clan. She might be here awhile as your roommate_ _…_ _as she's an orphan."_

" _An orphan?"_

" _Her relatives all died when she was eight, all save her grandmother, but she's been in coma since the girl was thirteen. The company took advantage of this open opportunity to take the girl into custody. She just came back from performing a test, though. I could've sworn she had a little more life to her back then."_

-x-

In the private room he was given, Shinji went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet; he didn't like the idea of the main room having any hidden cameras because he needed his privacy. Once there, he removed the burner phone Yui got him and checked the cell signal strength, but not to call anyone. No, he was going to text. That was part of the plan.

To be continued…

A/N: I bet none of you expected that to happen. We finally see Misato's Ceres universe's counterpart. No doubt that Shinji's going to feel that he needs to help her.


	18. Deadlock

Creation began on 05-30-16

Creation ended on 01-09-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Deadlock

A/N: Nobody has the power to decide the fate of others, regardless of their intentions.

"…I still don't like this," said Asuka to the others at the cafe five blocks away from Mikage International, unable to drink her herbal tea because of her concerns for Shinji. "Even if this was his idea to begin with."

Suddenly, her cell phone beeped and vibrated; she was receiving a text from someone.

Yui, who was sitting in between her and Anzu, asked, "Has he made contact?"

The text was from an unlisted number that was set as the contact number for the burner Shinji was given, and it read, _The deal with Kagami has been made. He's letting the other women with Tennyo backgrounds go in return for my services. But we have a complication._

"Yeah," she answered Yui. "Your cousin's accepted Shinji's proposition, Aya and Aki. But he says there's a complication."

"What sort of complication?" Aki asked, sitting across the table from the ladies as Asuka texted back to Shinji's burner.

 _There's a woman, another Tennyo descendant, that they can't let go of yet. She's another version of a person I know of from my world._ Shinji's text responded to Asuka's question concerning the complication. _It's Misato Katsuragi. Her presence here may complicate things._

Asuka showed them the text, remembering Shinji's memories of an older, purple-haired woman by the name of Misato Katsuragi, who, despite seeming like an educated tactician for a paramilitary agency, had an awful degree of alcoholism (she had never known anyone to have and consume over forty gallons of beer in their house) and dressed very indecently in front of Shinji and the version of her that was very mean. She couldn't imagine this world's incarnation of the woman to be anything like the one Shinji knew of.

"But…if they let go of the others, it'll only be the two of them," Aya said, still trying to be hopeful. "We can still do this. I mean…we can still do this, right?"

Anzu, the last one to look at the text Shinji sent, handed Asuka back her phone and expressed, "We can still do this. We've been inside the building, we know most of the layout. Let's put an end to this saddening goal built upon grief, loss and obsession."

"The sooner we end this, the less suffering they'll have to endure," said Asuka, texting Shinji back.

-x-

Once he was done texting, Shinji put the burner in his back pocket and got up out of the bathroom. If only they had given his room a window, he could've felt a little relief in Kagami agreeing to their deal. Still, Shinji would take whatever he could get out of this agreement. He just knew that he had to save this world's version of Misato while saving her was still within the realm of being doable; even if they didn't know each other in this world, in this life, he still felt like he had to do something about her being here, and as soon as possible before something else happened.

 _Frenzia,_ he called out to the celestial matriarch of the Ikari family, falling onto the bed behind him as he felt himself losing consciousness. _Frenzia…_ _Shinji_ _…_

Back in the misty, lantern-filled woods on a clear path, he looked for the two souls that were within his own, hoping to find some trace of information.

"Yes, Shinji?" He heard Frenzia as she appeared before him, followed by his deceased counterpart.

"You saw her, right?" He asked. "The girl? Misato?"

"We both saw her, Shinji," his deceased counterpart told him. "If something has happened to her, it could complicate things later."

"Our world's incarnation of your world's Misato Katsuragi must be a genuine member of the Katsuragi Clan's celestial background," Frenzia revealed. "The clan's origins go back eight-hundred years, right to the days where its two Tennyo matriarchs first appeared before two brothers. It was from these four that the Katsuragi Clan was founded. While they went separate ways, the bond between the two sisters kept the clan united. It's also half the reason the clan survived to the present, even if it's only now comprised of this girl and her grandmother."

"If I had to ask about their levels of power compared to yours or Ceres, what answer would I get from you, Frenzia?" Shinji asked her.

"Honestly, the Katsuragi Tennyo matriarchs were below most others from other clans and families because the majority of their descendants were no different from ordinary people, just like the brothers they encountered and joined with when they began having their families. Any celestial energies their descendants possessed manifested only within a few generations at any time throughout the centuries. Even then, the likelihood of them being anywhere near the level of their celestial ancestors would be very small."

"We still can't leave her here with them," he told them.

"We're not going to," his deceased counterpart assured him.

-x-

"…So, now he feels he has to help your doppelgänger out of the situation he finds these others in," said Asuka as she set down the mirror and slid it over to Misato.

"Are we feeling jealous because of what your red-eyed double expressed about Shinji?" Misato asked her. "That's a new one, coming from you."

"I am not jealous of anybody," she defended. "Why would I need to be jealous of him?!"

Rei picked up the mirror and viewed Shinji…with small pads on the front sides of his face.

"Are they performing a test on Ikari-Kun?" She asked Misato, showing her and Asuka the mirror.

Shinji seemed tense, in a bare, white room with monitoring pads stuck to his head, sitting in a chair in front of a glass window where several men in white lab coats were sitting in front of a console watching him.

"It seems like they are doing an evaluation of who they think is his doppelgänger from their world," Misato suggested, but the way Shinji was dressed and displayed…just reminded her of the two years she spent unable to do anything after Second Impact. "But what kind?"

-x-

Shinji, going through something Kagami called a power-determining test, had to show these people that he was stronger than anything Ceres had displayed at her peak in a sixteen-year-old body. But if what he kept learning about was all true, then all he needed to do was display some measure of celestial power.

"We're ready to begin," said Kagami to him.

"Okay," he responded, thinking of the people that needed to be protected from Mikage International, from Kagami, to let them pursue their own future and not one of some…perfection that simply didn't exist. _Show them something of interest, Shinji. Something to impress them._

" _Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty,"_ he recalled an old piece of footage that Kensuke had shown him from the States back in the time before Second Impact, back in the early to mid-Nineteen-Hundreds. _"And, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says…"_

Because he had closed his eyes to the thought of what was in his head, the young man didn't see the men getting out of their seats and backing away from the console. In between them, Kagami and Shinji himself was a miniaturized version of Evangelion Unit-01, looking more organic and the size of a human, baring its gnashing teeth and flexing its inhuman claws.

"The Devil!" One of the men shouted, just as the mini-Eva approached the viewing window and placed its claws on the safety glass.

The console sparked and short-circuited, fusing up and burning out. Then, the safety glass started heating up and melting away, leaving only the door the men used to enter and leave the room as the only way to get away from the beast.

"Shinji Ikari!" Kagami shouted, and Shinji opened his eyes.

"Hmm?" He went, and the mini-Eva vanished, leaving no trace of its presence; even the damages it caused were undone. "Were you able to gauge my level yet?"

"What were you thinking of just a moment ago?"

"The Manhattan Project. What Mr. Oppenheimer said about the Atom bomb aftermath. Why?"

Kagami then looked at the console, seeing that it had been unable to properly measure the boy's celestial power.

"You weren't…thinking of something else?"

"No, sir."

-x-

"That was creepy," went Misato, setting the mirror down. "I can't believe Shinji was able to do that…and he wasn't thinking about it at all."

"He could've been lying," Asuka suggested.

"He answered to this man that he wasn't thinking about anything but this Manhattan Project," Rei expressed. "Why would he lie about that?"

Before a response could be given, the door to the room opened and Gendo came back inside.

"Commander Ikari," Misato greeted, getting up out of her seat.

"Major Katsuragi," he responded. "Any progress?"

"Shinji has managed to help some of the people he has met close some of their violent chapters," she expressed; after discovering the details of Shinji and the red-eyed Asuka's shared visions of a possible future, she didn't want to risk having it come true by informing the boy's father that he could very well cause a few deaths.

"Is he any closer to inheriting from this…celestial matriarch?"

"No, sir."

"Is this true, Rei?" He asked the First Child.

"It is true, Commander Ikari," she answered, but kept her gaze on the mirror on the table. "Shinji has…other matters that hinder him at the moment."

"Such as?"

Misato turned to face the albino girl, hoping that she wouldn't say that Shinji felt the need to save her doppelgänger of that world.

"He is…managing a deal he made with some people to preserve the lives of other women of similar celestial heritage as his deceased counterpart," Rei stated. "They would be permitted to go free…if he agreed to aid the scientists that possess an interest in eugenics with himself as their sole guinea pig instead of them as many."

"And…his mother let him do so?"

"The women he befriended since he appeared in their world are helping him carry out a different agenda that does not seem to include Shinji being completely cooperative."

"I see. As you were."

Gendo then left the room.

Misato sighed and returned to her seat.

"You didn't tell him about my doppelgänger, Rei," she expressed.

"If what you and Pilot Soryu have suggested is true," she stated, "then it was not necessary for Commander Ikari to know of his potential involvement in a future event that Shinji will try to prevent from happening."

"Still, you lied to him," went Asuka to her. "That's the first time I heard of you doing so."

"It wasn't a lie. It was a different variation of the truth. Shinji is helping to preserve the lives of other women of similar celestial background, of which Major Katsuragi's doppelgänger is one of, in exchange for his cooperation as their guinea pig."

But as Misato and Asuka saw it, Rei did lie to Gendo…by just telling him something that was a different version of the truth…told from a different point of view.

Rei then picked up the mirror, and saw Shinji being shown a slideshow of various images.

"What test is this?" She questioned Major Katsuragi, seeing that Shinji had the same pads on his head with wires sticking out.

"I'm not sure," she answered back; based on the images she could see, it looked like a lot of recent devastation, but she wasn't sure what sort of test this related to.

-x-

Kagami had called it an emotional-response test, trying to gauge a C-Genome's celestial power by monitoring their brain activity when exhibiting a wide range of emotional responses. But while Shinji was their only male C-Genome, they weren't sure how any of the tests they performed on the women they were letting go of would apply to Shinji. So far, they were getting some reactions, but very few. With each picture of recent deaths that were revealed to him that had been caused by Mikage International in their earlier attempts to find women with celestial powers, Shinji's fists balled in his lap…but then opened up and periodically flexed.

"The energy readings keep rising up every few points, but then go back down," a female monitor informed Kagami.

In Shinji's mind, each slide that showed some people dying or the loss of their homes, it just made him think that these events could've been avoided if the goal to find Tennyo descendants never was. Then these people he never met, would never meet, never suffered the way they had, even in the name of science or for the sake of reshaping the world. A picture of a little girl being held in her mother's arms as she passed away brought a tear to his left eye. It made him feel so much anger towards Mikage International, so much misery, but he had to keep himself in check; if he gave himself away to the Rage-filled Anchor that would've drove him to perform acts that were random and brutal, he feared the potential harm he could bring to people without meaning to.

"I'm so sorry," he said instead, apologizing to the dead victims.

"He's sympathetic to the deceased," a male monitor expressed, "but he doesn't know them, any of them. Why would he apologize to people he never met before?"

"Where are we on his stress and emotional readings?" Kagami asked them.

"Stress and emotions are…well over one-hundred-forty percent," another male observer answered, going over the readings. "We're picking up some celestial energy being given, but it's very minute."

The next picture Shinji saw was one of Ceres, from before she was reunited with her hagoromo and moved on from this plane of existence and set Aya and her brother free from her and her husband's cruelty that spanned generations since they first met, and he shut his eyes for a moment and turned his head away to process this. Returning to his calmness, he opened his eyes again and looked back at the picture, reminded that Ceres was no longer a concern because she was no longer around to be sought after, and that his reason for being here was to help free those still bound by the mere obsession of Ceres and her power and lingering influence.

"Rage spiked for a minute, but then dropped," the female observer revealed to Kagami. "Is he trying to keep control over his emotions? Maybe that's why we're not picking up as much celestial energy from him like we would've with the previous C-Genomes."

"Still, it's incredible that he's able to perform highly in this test at all," the male observer confessed. "The younger C-Genomes could barely keep their emotions in check, but this boy… He's being shown what has transpired, and he's just sympathetic to the deceased. Surely, he has some degree of wanting to express a little violence over what was done."

"And yet, he continues to sit in front of the slideshow," went Kagami, wondering what was going on in that boy's head, and pressed a button to the intercom in the room. "How are you feeling, Shinji?"

The boy sighed and responded, "Awful."

"Awful? Can you elaborate?"

"How many people had to die for you to find the ones you were looking for? How many lives were turned upside-down before you were pleased with your results? Those lives that didn't survive were lives that didn't have to end. They didn't have to suffer the way they did. I sympathize for each of them, their hopes and dreams unfulfilled. It's cruel and there's no justification to what was done to them."

Kagami then released the button to the intercom.

"Whoa," some of the people around him shuddered.

"That was heavy," the female observer expressed.

"Very," Kagami agreed with her.

-x-

It may have only been two days since Shinji went to Mikage International, but for Asuka, Yui and Anzu, it might as well have been a week or a month due to the intensity of their shared concern for the boy.

"You know, we're only three blocks down the street from him," said Aya to them, as they had checked into a hotel to stay close to Shinji. "He may just be undergoing their evaluation."

"Do you honestly believe that?" Asuka asked her, looking out the window to the glimpse of Mikage International that she could see. "How can any of us be sure?"

Yui and Anzu, who were sitting on their hotel beds, looked at Asuka… who seemed…immensely concerned about Shinji…in almost the exact same way she had been about their Shinji when he was under the influence of the Rage-filled Anchor.

Of course, with the four of them being the only ones to have a deeper understanding of Shinji from having experienced his memories, Aya had to be honest that Shinji was anything but in a safe place so long as he was at that building and with her cousin at the moment.

"No, I don't believe it," she told Asuka, and sat on the third hotel bed in the room. "Has he texted you?"

Asuka took out her phone and sighed, "No."

-x-

"…Oh, you must be Shinji Ikari," Shinji was spoken by a tall man with a thick accent an aura of intellect that seemed high, but hindered by something else. "Nice to finally make your acquaintance."

Shinji, who was being escorted back to his room after finishing several tests, responded, "I'm sorry, but who are you?"

"Where are my manners? I'm Alexander O. Howell. Friends just call me Alec, though," the man introduced himself to him.

"You'll forgive me for being cautious," Shinji told him. "I have a bit of a… What is it called? A peeve when it comes to those of scientific background. Makes it hard for me to get where they're coming from much of the time…and because I've been stuck at with needles for the last three hours by some when they drew my blood."

"Oh, sorry about that. We just needed to see if there was a comparison between the blood cells of you and Ceres. Oddly enough, you're at a higher level than the samples we have of her."

"Then I guess that's means my blood is very valuable."

"It makes you very valuable. You're…you're unique. There's never been a male C-Genome before…or any male child born with celestial energies that we've ever come across. Personally, I'm hoping that just you will suffice over all the previous C-Genomes that are going home later this evening. Truth be said, one is better than none or too many."

Shinji bowed his head and said, "I believe in too much of anything is a bad thing. Sometimes, just one should be enough."

"It often depends of what that one thing is to someone," said someone else to Shinji, and said boy saw a man leaning against a wall, looking like he hailed from some place in Asian culture, but his tone was like someone consumed by some sort of rage that was different from the Rage-filled Anchor Shinji was possessed by. "Sometimes, just one of something is never enough."

When the man turned to face them, Shinji noticed that he had a facial injury and had his left eye covered with an eye patch.

Something in Shinji's mind told him that whatever happened to this man was not only unexpected, but resulted in a grudge.

"Your presence here has changed everything," the man told him. "And yet, you're here cooperating."

"So long as the women are permitted to go home, what reason would I have to go?" Shinji questioned. "The future can be rewritten to replace the previous future that would've happened had I stayed away, had Ceres remained."

"You're a believer of changing the future, then?" Alec asked him.

"Yes…and no," Shinji answered him, allowing himself to be influenced by Frenzia's presence to give his words more clarity. "You give someone the gift of prophecy, and what do they do with it? Do you let these awful things that you saw would happen tomorrow today or the day before…or do you try to change things so that maybe more than one life will be spared an unforgiving fate? I've seen enough suffering and just want it to stop. My perception of people suffering is just different from others…because I see everyone suffering, everyone that can suffer."

"We were going to change the world with the C-Genomes," the one-eyed man told Shinji. "You may be viewed as being more valuable as Ceres was believed to be, but how do you expect to be able to change the world?"

Shinji turned to face and approach him.

"Tell me, how would you change the world…with women that could do what others could not?" He asked him. "I want to know what your intentions would've been."

"What the project had initially been," the man responded. "A new generation for a new world. A perfect world."

"Except 'perfect' is just a word. There's no truth to such a goal. Even if there were such, the price for such a world is high. Always has been high. Say you did it? Say all of you that believed in this project did it, that you had the women give this world a new generation to lead it into a perfect world, what becomes of the people that won't be permitted to be a part of it? What becomes of the people that don't know about the new world order? Can you tell me?"

"Your perception of things is different for someone so young. Those that won't fit in will die."

"But in the end, that's a fate that will befall us all, whether we want it to or not. Nothing is meant to go on forever."

"The Tennyo have gone on for generations. Your family line and the line of the Mikages are the strongest ever seen. All that's needed are…perfect people to bring about your full potential."

 _Shinji,_ went his deceased counterpart, _I get the feeling that when he says you need perfect people to bring about your full potential, he's referring to women to gift the world with children inheriting the celestial powers of the Ikari family. Except that's impossible for those of our family lineage right now because the Rage-filled Anchor is currently within you and you alone. Unless it's a fifth or sixth generation boy child, any children you could have, either now or later in the future, would be no different from regular children._

"How can you even be sure that any children of the new generation would have any celestial powers to reshape the world?" Shinji asked the one-eyed man.

"Science can make sure of it," he answered him.

He recalled the brief science talk that Yui gave him after how Frenzia explained how the Tennyo had children with countless men of many different races, not just humans, about how people could just create designer children or use methods to ensure that they were only the best out of their genes. Shinji was also the most relieved when she told him that her son, excluding the celestial powers and Rage-filled Anchor, was not some perfection-intended bastard child, that he was just an unpredictable boy out in the unpredictable world that had yet to know what he was capable of achieving. Of course, the entire family had to agree on the fact that her lousy taste in men had a helping hand in giving the deceased Shinji his place in the world.

"Who are you and why do you believe in this goal so much?" He asked the man.

"Wei Fei Li," he introduced himself to the boy, "and my reason for believing in this goal is to put an end to the senseless corruption of today's generation."

"I've heard of worse reasons. Out of curiosity, how'd that happen (Shinji pointed to his missing eye)?"

"That treacherous Toya," Wei Fei Li answered him. "It was over a year ago. If I ever see him again, I will make him pay with his eyes."

-x-

Ring! Asuka's phone rang, but the tone was different; she set different tones to alert her of different callers, and this one was rarely heard by her.

She picked up and spoke, "Hey, Mine. What's going on? Huh? Rei's not at home? I haven't seen her. I've been with the Ikaris since they got back. You think she's missing?"

She looked at Yui and Anzu with a heavy expression; despite her affection and respect for the Ayanamis, she rarely spoke about them during her conversations with them. Even for a whole year, Asuka barely spoke with Rei…and Rei barely said a thing to her. But it wasn't like they hated each other or something, there was just very little to talk about.

"I'll try calling her, but I'm sure she's fine," she told Mine, but in truth, the redhead felt she needed to be worried about two people in her life right now. "Thank you for your call."

Hanging up, she started calling Rei's number, hoping that she hadn't gone and changed it.

"Hello, you have reached Rei Ayanami," she heard her voice, but recognized it as her voice mailbox. "I'm not able to take your call at this time, but if you leave a message, I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Have a great day."

"Rei, it's Asuka," she decided to leave a message. "I just got a call from your mother, Mine, and we're both worried about you didn't get home. It's usually me that plays hooky, but please give me a call as soon as you can. You know my number hasn't changed. I'll try to call you again later."

"Rei has never skipped school once?" Yui asked her.

"No, she… Between Rei and I, she's the good girl," Asuka told her.

"The good girl, as in she doesn't skip classes and comes straight home?" Anzu questioned. "I'll be honest, Asuka, but you're a good girl yourself. I mean, can you think of any other girl that would willingly put up with Shinji, despite everything that has happened?"

"Yeah, and… You're the only one that made him smile, even when he was in pain," Yui added.

Aya couldn't understand the pain these three felt from their lost, but could relate to the pain of losing someone you loved. And then, there was this other Shinji that was helping them after setting her free from her family's predicament.

"What kind of person is Rei like?" She asked Asuka.

"Rei? She's… How do I explain Rei? She's… She makes better grades than I do, has blue hair, blue eyes, is the head of the school swim team and the teachers all say she could be a great businesswoman with her intellect, but Rei told me once that she wasn't sure what she wanted to be in her later years…and would've probably settled for being a dentist. I mean, what kind of girl in this day and age…wants to be something so…so trivial as a dentist?"

"Sounds like someone without something meaningful in her life," Anzu stated.

"Without meaning? But what could she not have that is meaningful? I mean, what could she want that is meaningful?"

"I don't know," said Yui. "Maybe she's experiencing early symptoms of Bipolar Disorder."

"I doubt that, Yui," Asuka told her, defending her foster sister mildly. "I've been with her ever since my parents died and Mine took me in, and I've never seen her so much as take vitamins she didn't need or steal from someone. No complaints or anything."

"Okay, I need to be a real doctor and not a geneticist."

"This would be easier to understand…if we were speaking with Ms. Ayanami directly," went Anzu.

-x-

If Shinji had the choice, he would've avoided Wei Fei Fi, but he just had the feeling that a one-eyed man with a vendetta with Toya was unlikely to be avoided in the unwritten future. As he sat in the large chamber that was once used for the other C-Genomes, he looked across from where he sat to Misato's younger doppelgänger, who seemed unaware of his presence.

 _How do I go about approaching her?_ He thought, wanting to at least establish a good impression before any attempt to rescue her from these people was made.

 _Just go up to her,_ he heard his deceased self suggest. _Introduce yourself as who you are. How she responds is up to her._

 _Those that seek to reach out to others must not be afraid to try,_ he heard Frenzia add in.

 _Okay, then,_ he accepted and got up.

Slowly, he walked across the wide expanse of floor towards the other table where Misato sat in front of a small tray of food. Whatever they did to her, it seemed like she rarely noticed anything, including the need to feed.

"Uh, hello, there," he spoke up, hoping to get her attention.

Thankfully, she turned her head and looked up at him.

"Excuse me, who are you?" She spoke up.

It was just the way she said it. There was a degree of hollowness in her voice, like she was deprived of any feelings.

"Um, uh, my name is Shinji Ikari," he introduced himself. "How are you today?"

She looked away from him.

"Tell me, why are you here?" She asked him.

"My cooperation in exchange for them leaving the women alone and letting them go home," he responded, being simple.

"Why are you here?" She asked him again. "As in…why are you standing here in front of me?"

Inhaling a new breath, Shinji calmly stated, "I'm here to talk to you. I heard you were in some sort of test and that you would be here for a while."

-x-

"…My Gott, Misato, your doppelgänger's almost brain-dead," Asuka told her guardian as they looked at the mirror. "What do you think they did to her?"

"Something awful, that's for certain," she responded.

" _Is that your only reason?"_ They heard Misato's doppelgänger ask Shinji.

" _Does there have to be any other reason?"_ Shinji asked her.

" _Because you're a guy."_

" _Because I'm a guy?"_

" _Men are known to have reasons behind their reasons."_

" _If I have to reason beyond just wanting to talk with you, it's only to see how you're doing. No hidden agenda. No exploitation. Just_ _…_ _how you're doing."_

" _What is the weather like outside?"_

" _Sunny and clear, but I couldn't say much beyond that. I haven't been outside since I got here."_

" _It's a pity."_

" _What is?"_

" _You're different from the other men I've seen here. I've been here for over a year now, and I've yet to hear from my grandmother about her medical status. I begin to doubt that I'll ever."_

" _Well, uh, maybe I can help you with that."_

They saw the younger Misato look at him, having an expression that seemed to mirror their Rei Ayanami's expression, and the adult Misato was rather bothered by this.

" _Why would you want to help me?"_ She asked him.

" _I guess I'm just a Good Samaritan,"_ they heard Shinji respond, explaining his reason for offering to help her get in contact with her grandmother. _"I've helped a few people_ _…_ _and I still feel the need to help others for selfless reasons."_

" _Most that would offer their aid would do so with the intention of a reward in return."_

" _Oh, rest assured. I don't want anything of a reward. There's something I am after, but it's not something that one can simply get_ _…_ _and_ _…it's beyond the value of anything you can put a price tag on."_

" _How do you obtain something that one can't simply obtain?"_

" _That is the ultimate question."_

-x-

"…Ikari, we are most displeased with your lack of clarity," SEELE 01 informed Gendo in their next meeting.

"Elaborate," Gendo uttered.

"You failed to disclose that the missing pilot as a result of the Twelfth Angel was the Third Child, your son," went SEELE 10 to him.

"It was unnecessary to explain his absence," he defended his reasons for not discussing the boy's whereabouts. "In addition, he was declared MIA because of the Angel, and a replacement pilot has yet to be found as a result of this."

"You declared the Third Child MIA…on account that a recent piece of information that we received revealed that he was displaced into another universe…where the only window into this other realm is through a mirror." SEELE 04 revealed. "Or is the reason you failed to disclose this information because the realm the Third Child is displaced in is some sort of alternate dimension where he has encountered select individuals that are alternate doppelgängers of select individuals from this dimension…such as your late wife?"

Gendo frowned in front of the holographic monoliths representing the old men.

"Unless there is something you'd like to share on this discovery, Ikari," SEELE 01 expressed, "we demand to know what you've discovered of this displacement."

-x-

In his room, in his solitude where he needed his privacy, sitting on his bed, Shinji looked down at his burner phone. He had considered contacting Asuka and the others to let them know he was fine (even though he wasn't really doing well), but he decided to do something different. He dialed the number that Misato's doppelgänger gave him of the hospital her grandmother was being cared for at; it was his hope that somebody was there to answer his questions on her medical state.

"This is the Ryoji Kaji Memorial Veteran's Hospital," a female voice uttered when the other end picked up. "How may I help you?"

"Hello, I'm calling on behalf of Misato Katsuragi to update her on the status of her grandmother, Misao Katsuragi," Shinji explained to her.

"Okay, and who may I ask is this speaking?"

"Uh, Judai Yuki."

While he might've given a false name, it was to ensure his own protection and anyone else that might've been listening.

"Okay, the most recent update on Mrs. Katsuragi was two days ago, and she showed signs of waking from her coma. We won't know for certain until a few more days go by." The female voice revealed to Shinji, who was elated to hear this.

"Really? She showed signs of recovering? Well, that's great. Thank you. I'm sure her granddaughter will be relieved to hear this." He responded, and hung up. _Now, I just need to tell Misato that her grandmother may recover from her coma._

And one he told her this discovery, he hoped to go about helping her further before getting to safety away from Mikage International.

-x-

"…Oh, Shinji's texting again," Asuka told the others as her phone responded to a text sent by Shinji on his burner. "So far, he's doing fine. They haven't done anything extreme to him yet."

"What does he mean by 'extreme'?" Aya asked her; there were different ways to interpret 'extreme'.

Asuka texted back to ask Shinji what he meant by that, and the response was that the people at Mikage International hadn't poked and prodded him or put him under a microscope just yet.

"That's a relief," said Yui. "We're still waiting on his say-so to go in and do what we have to do."

-x-

Gendo was not to take the orders of SEELE sitting down, even if he wasn't sitting down. After being instructed to disregard the displacement of the Third Child if there was no means to reacquire him from the other dimension, he returned to his office and pondered his next course of action. He thought about what Fuyutsuki had informed him about his son on the road to trying to inherit from this celestial matriarch of the Ikari family of the other universe…and decided that whatever this thing was that his son could gain possession of that would put him on the level of a deity, he wanted it for himself. If he had this power, he'd be able to do away with SEELE and achieve Instrumentality on his own terms without any obstacles hindering him.

Picking up his phone, he called Fuyutsuki's phone.

"Yes?" Fuyutsuki uttered on the other end.

"Take care of things for me here," he ordered. "I'll be gone for a few days."

Since the Adam embryo he had grafted to his right hand was the source of all the other Angels they were dealing with, including the Twelfth Angel, Gendo deduced that this meant Adam also possessed the power of the Twelfth Angel, including the ability to connect with other universes. All he needed…was a point of origin to start at…and he knew just where to start.

-x-

Asuka's phone went off again as the ringtone she used to indicate that Mine was calling her was heard again.

"Yes, Mine?" She asked.

"I know it's only been less than three hours since I last called you, but have you heard anything from Rei since then?" Mine asked her back.

"No, nothing," she answered her. "I called her phone and left a message, but she hasn't responded."

"I'm officially worried because I went into her room a few minutes ago and found a note on her bed. I don't understand the language she used when writing it, though, but it was addressed to me. Can I send you a picture of it and maybe you can tell me what it means?"

"Yeah, sure. Please, send it to me."

It might've been late at night, but Asuka was willing to give her foster mother the benefit of the doubt when it came to her concerns for her and Rei. When the image of the note came through, the redhead looked at it and her eyes widened in woe.

"Mine… Rei wrote this in a combination of three languages, including English and Mandarin Chinese," she told her foster mother. "In it, she says, _"I am sorry, Mother, Asuka, but this is something I feel I just need to do. You don't have to worry, I shouldn't be gone for more than a week. I'm just heading out with a friend to see this new concert by GeSANG that's supposed to be off the charts. Asuka will probably be with the Ikaris, so she won't know until later. I would've asked you first, but I decided that it would've been an impasse or deadlock to try so. I took care of it with the school so I'll have my homework with me while I'm gone. Kisses, your daughter, Rei"_. Rei just…ran off to see a concert, that's all."

"A concert? I wish she had told me first. Who is this GeSANG, anyway?"

"They're kind of a big deal in Okinawa. You remember that stuff I told you about that old toy-line in America that turned into a franchise called _Jem and the Holograms_? It's kinda like that."

"I swear, half the time, I have no clue what you two are into these days. I would probably understand if it were something like cheerleading or…cute boys, but you two tend to keep to yourselves, and I don't pry, even when I should."

"I'll own up to what I've been up to over the past few years to you. I've been…involved with Shinji…romantically."

"Romantically? You and Mr. Ikari? How involved is 'involved', exactly?" Mine asked her, though Asuka suspected that she probably already knew the answer to the question.

"I… Shinji and I… We're an item in every sense of the word. I don't want to say anything about it that could be misunderstood as something it isn't."

"Just a simple 'yes' or 'no' will suffice for my next question, Asuka. You and Mr. Ikari… You two have been sleeping together most of the time you're not here…haven't you?"

Asuka hadn't expected Mine to ask her that, but she had to put the water under the bridge.

"Yes," she answered her. "Yes."

"I should probably be surprised when I find out my foster daughter is that far involved with a boy, but I can't, for the heart of me, condemn your relationship with him. All I ask is that you be careful."

"Thank you, Mine."

When the call ended, Asuka couldn't believe that she had just confided in her foster mother that she was Shinji's lover…and that she accepted the relationship.

"So, Mrs. Ayanami now knows?" She heard Anzu ask her from across the dark room.

"Yeah," she answered her.

"Perhaps when this is all over, we should meet with her," suggested Yui to them.

"Assuming that this current situation with Shinji and the rest of the Mikage family will get resolved in due time," Asuka reminded. "And assuming that Rei gets back from that concert she said she was going to that would keep her away for a week."

-x-

The streets and buildings might've been restored in the aftermath of the Angel's destruction, but the remnants of the Dirac Sea remained in a phantom state. This was enough to stir up the power of Adam in Gendo's hand. As he went into a back alley, he found a small spot that was a remnant of the Dirac Sea on the side of a Dumpster.

"If you obtain something that will make you god-like, Third Child," he uttered, reaching out to the Dirac Sea, "you will relinquish it."

-x-

GASP! Shinji awoke in the dead of the night, feeling like something unanticipated just occurred somewhere.

He got out of bed and walked into the bathroom to douse his face.

 _What's going on out there?_ He wondered, looking at his reflection in the mirror. _Why do I get the feeling that something really terrible just happened?_

Dipping his head into the sink bowl as it filled with water, Shinji couldn't shake the awful feeling away. It was a feeling…of deadlock, and as he pulled his head out of the water, he still looked terrible. Looking down at his hands as they trembled a little, he at first wondered if it was the Rage-filled Anchor acting up inside him, trying to take control of him and make him act out irrationally, but this feeling wasn't a feeling of displaced rage. It was…just a feeling of deadlock…and fear.

 _Something…is really wrong,_ he thought as his hands stopped trembling.

-x-

"I don't think I've ever seen him like this before," went Asuka to Misato, seeing Shinji a little out of sorts through the mirror. "Have you?"

"Something has him frightened," the purple-haired woman suspected. "He's tense and worried about something that may not be right."

"Maybe those people that he made a deal with in exchange for the women being cut loose decided to renege before he did something to them."

"Maybe, but why would they do anything late at night?"

Rei picked up the mirror, but then wished she hadn't…and put the mirror back down.

"Rei?" Misato asked her.

"He…may be in danger," she uttered.

"Danger?" Asuka questioned. "In danger from who? The mirror showed us a possibility where his father kills him and my red-eyed doppelgänger, but that was just that. It was a possibility. Unless he found a way into this other world, I'd say that the only danger he has to deal with are these people there. Unless the danger is not from a person."

"It has to be a person," Misato expressed. "The world he's in doesn't have any Angels or Evas. The only real threat, the only real danger that exists there…is just people."

Asuka then picked up the mirror…and saw Shinji sitting on his bed, looking at small photo that didn't seem to be old…but seemed recent. From his point of view, the mirror showed Shinji in a group photo with the Mikage twins, Toya, Yuuhi, Q-Chan, the doppelgänger of his mother and her mother, and her red-eyed doppelgänger in front of a beach. And, to her surprise, the boy was smiling as he stood in between her counterpart and the counterpart of his mother; it was like he actually belonged with them.

" _How did I let Asuka talk me into taking a group photo?"_ She heard him say. _"This is the first picture I've actually taken ever since I got involved in the Angel situation that suddenly switched to a Tennyo situation, and it's the only one that actually cheers me up so far."_

That's when Asuka was reminded that Shinji, ever since she met him on the _Over the Rainbow_ , didn't have many photos among the meager possessions in his room. Whatever photos he did have were just his school ones and the one used for his NERV ID card. Now that she thought about it, Shinji seemed to be the only person she met that had no family pictures or even just a single memento from his childhood because she heard the rumor that his father cast away everything.

"Shinji doesn't have any pictures of his mother from this world, does he?" She asked Misato, handing her the mirror.

"No, he doesn't," she answered. "And since he has no clue as to what his mother looked like here, we're left to assume that the doppelgänger of mother from the other world…and Rei herself…resemble his mother from here."

Looking into the mirror, she saw the photo Shinji was looking at felt that it was most appropriate, like a family photo, even if he was a stranger in a place he didn't quite belong in.

"Shinji, be careful," she uttered.

Suddenly, Shinji looked up from the photo and around his room.

" _Misato?"_ She heard him say.

 _Did_ _…_ _did he just hear my voice?_ Misato wondered.

-x-

Shaking off the series of horrible things he saw on his sojourn journey to where the Third Child was, Gendo stood on a beach walkway, overlooking a large rock shaped like a magatama half-buried in the sand. The sky was foggy, but it was beginning to clear up as the sun began to rise beyond the ocean, revealing that he was at a coastal area. An undamaged or unchanged coastal area…of a world where Second Impact never was.

 _If the Third Child was around here, I'll find him,_ Gendo thought, his only interests being finding the boy and making sure he had something of value that was worth taking from him for his own purposes. _There's only power for one Ikari, and it isn't you._

To be continued…

A/N: Oh, dear, now Gendo has entered the Ceres universe with the intention of taking Frenzia's mana that Shinji sets to try and inherit. What do you suppose is going to happen? Review, please.


	19. Son of the Damned, Father of the Divine

Creation began on 01-09-17

Creation ended on 05-21-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Son of the Damned, Father of the Divine

"Aaahh!" Yui gasped, waking up from a horrible nightmare.

"What? What? What?" Asuka responded, jumping out of her bed, seeing Yui covered in sweat. "What happened to you?"

Covering her face with her left hand, Yui calmed herself and said, "I saw my last boyfriend…and he was hurting you and Shinji. He said very awful things."

Anzu, who was also woken up by her daughter's scream, asked her, "You saw Gendo in your dream? That sore loser has been dead for years. He was stabbed in his chest…and then stabbed six more times for good measure, his body returned to his relatives, who had him cremated before they left the town because they couldn't stand to be reminded that he nearly killed someone in an intoxicated state, which, in turn, got him killed."

"But…if he was cremated…then how could Yui have seen him hurting Shinji and myself in a dream? Unless, of course…it wasn't a dream?" Asuka questioned; she feared that the revelation of Shinji's last known vision of the future had found a way to become part of the present, despite their trying to keep it from happening by just being forewarned.

Yui placed her left hand on the front of her neck and expressed, "If it was just a dream…it was the first surreal dream I've had in fifteen years. His eyes… His eyes were cold and without a shred of compassion…and his right hand… It looked…inhuman."

If what Yui saw in her nightmare was as accurate as how Shinji described his future vision, then Asuka knew that something happened to cause someone just like the man that served only as the other half of her dead lover's origins to make a dent into the present. She even suspected that it might've been the alternate Shinji's father, having found a way into this world. The only question they needed to understand now was what would bring a man like that here…and for what purpose?

-x-

Right now, a window would've been helpful for Shinji, feeling like the fresh air would do him some good. So far, just laying on the carpet on the floor wasn't helping to calm his nerves. First, he had a feeling that something really terrible was going to happen, and then he thought he heard the adult Misato's voice from outside his head instead of in his head, and now he wasn't sure what was going on out there in the world he was cut off from in order to carry out his role in the plan to bring down the Mikages for good to ensure everyone was kept safe from their agenda to change the world.

 _Come on, Shinji, you're bound to know what's going on if you try hard to find out,_ he thought, facing up at the ceiling.

He thought about the outside world, about the people he didn't know that wandered about the city he was in, of the possible danger that they could experience at any given moment of the day, hoping that it was just his imagination playing with him. But then he had to be reminded that when it came to his past, his previous experiences with conflict, his recent discovery of a hidden world of untold power gifted to only a few of mankind and other races by divine beings, Shinji didn't really have any imagination to play games with…because everything he knew was that of a difficult life.

-x-

There was no indication that this world had any problems of the Angel variety. Whatever problems this world did have, they were just regular problems. This was something Gendo had to adjust to, as he was now in a place that he had no ties to, no agency to run, no contacts or people to turn to for aid. But he had no problem with these lack of resources; everything and everyone was just a means to an end.

"Where are the cities in a place like this?" He questioned as he looked at a small map in this coastal town that he confirmed was where the Ikaris of this world lived, sitting at a table at a small café; he was fortunate that the cash he had with him when he got here worked like it did in the other world. "It looks like this is the closest one."

Taking a sip of his black coffee, the megalomaniac couldn't wait to see his son and if he had obtained this…whatever power he had to have for his own purposes. Anything his son obtained was wasted upon him if he didn't have the will to put it to use.

-x-

"…So, there's a chance she'll recover in due time," Shinji told Misato's younger doppelgänger when he got the chance to speak with her without being monitored by scientists or guards.

The seemingly-detached teenage woman, barely touching her tray of food, looked at him with a face he couldn't help but be reminded of Ayanami before she smiled at him after the Fifth Angel attack.

"Thank you," she told him, raising her right hand off the table and onto his left shoulder. "Thank you."

FLASH! Shinji suddenly found himself no longer in the large room that he and Misato's doppelgänger were in, and standing in front of a man just like his father in a dark place under a small light, surrounded by dead bodies.

"Power is wasted upon you in any world you reside in," the man told him, sounding just like his father, and then Shinji noticed his right hand. "You will surrender the power this Frenzia matriarch offered you. You are unfit for anything."

Shinji found himself frowning at the guy; somehow, he knew about Frenzia's mana that he had small hopes of inheriting, and expressed to desiring for himself.

"You will not get what isn't entitled to you," he told the man. "You have no claim to anything here."

"And you do?"

"The circumstances for me are different here. Here, I'm some bastard kid of the Ikari family, which is just comprised of only two women when you remove me from the picture."

"It doesn't matter. I want what you think is yours to obtain."

"But if I don't inherit it, you can't take it. If I don't have it myself, then that means you can't have it, either. I'm calling it a deadlock between us; I don't have what I'm entitled a right to try and inherit…and you can't take what I don't have yet…if I'll ever get it. Stalemate."

The man sneered and raised his right hand up, revealing something of a creature that looked embedded into the flesh.

"Then everyone here will suffer because of your stubbornness," he threatened Shinji, who looked at the dead bodies surrounding them.

One of them near his left leg was a guy that looked like Kagami, bloody and with an expression of fear; it looked as though he had been scared to death before being reduced to a bloody pulp.

When he looked back up at the guy that was his father, he had crossed a personal line and approached him, reaching out with his right hand, allowing Shinji to get a better look at the creature embedded in it. It looked like…some sort of four-limbed, embryonic organism with a very large eye.

"You disappoint me," he heard him say.

FLASH! Shinji found himself back in his room, feeling disoriented and like he had a headache he was just getting over.

"What the Hell happened?" He questioned, wondering how long he'd been out of it since his last chat with Misato's doppelgänger.

-x-

"…What the Hell was that?" Asuka asked Misato.

The mirror had shown the unusual encounter between Shinji and the guy that was indistinguishable from Gendo.

Misato got up and declared that she was going to check something out and would be back, leaving the First and Second Children alone in the room.

"He had something in his hand," Asuka said to Rei. "How did he have something like that in his hand, anyway? Did you know anything about this?"

"I know nothing of this," Rei responded; Commander Ikari didn't tell her much of anything.

"And he said he wanted the mana belonging to Frenzia that only those from her family line have a right to possess. Why would he want something he has no claim to?"

Rei could've used logic that there were people that would desire what others could possess, but decided not to. Whatever Commander Ikari's reason for wanting the inheritable property of a celestial matriarch affiliated to the Ikari family of this other world, Rei felt it was not for any good intentions…and that he was willing to harm anyone to achieve the goal of taking it from Shinji if he ever got it. Then, picking up the mirror to see Shinji, she saw not the Third Child, but herself, but the only thing different was her eyes; she did not possess blue eyes.

"Is this my doppelgänger of the other world?" She questioned, and Asuka looked at the image shown.

The blue-eyed Rei was shown inside a room with an older person, either an androgynous woman or a very feminine man, sitting behind a small mirror in front of them.

"… _But if he's not who you think he is, then why would you want my help in helping him?"_ The person asked the blue-eyed Rei, revealing themselves to be a woman.

" _You ever have those regrets where you could've done something different in your past?"_ They heard the blue-eyed Rei ask back, sounding different from her red-eyed counterpart, more…expressive and emotional. _"For over three years since I saw him, I've had nothing but regret. I felt an attraction to him…but I let my foster sister have him all to herself instead of coming clean with my feelings. The hardest part about it all was that I didn't even hate her for being with him. I just envied her…even though I encouraged her to be with him. And then, she was home more than usual when she's often with him. She claimed that he was away with his mother for a time outside of the country. But I could tell she was lying to my mother and I. Something happened to him that wasn't normal…and I only found out two months ago. Shinji was dead…and that he killed himself to keep from killing Asuka."_

Asuka looked at the red-eyed Rei with some suspicion before turning back to the mirror.

" _But…if the boy you knew is dead, then who is this other guy your foster sister is with?"_ The woman asked the blue-eyed Rei.

" _Someone who is just like Shinji, down to the very name and face,"_ she answered cryptically. _"Only problem is that he's in danger because of people that are dangerous if they have their way with him. I don't know how or even why, but I know that these people you mentioned when I met you on those online chat rooms, Mikage International, are just one half of the threat to his life. So I'm asking you, Ms. Shuro Tsukasa… No, I'm begging you, Ms. Shuro Tsukasa… Will you help me save the guy that's an alternate of my foster sister's dead lover?"_

-x-

After being informed by a female physician that he just passed out from fatigue for at least four hours, Shinji was being examined again and having his blood taken for additional tests to be run.

"You think you drew enough?" He asked the female doctor that was drawing his blood from his left arm and filling up eight vials with it.

"We're learning new things about you that have, so far, exceeded the previous C-Genomes in many respects," she explained to him. "While we have yet to see you demonstrate any abilities that are unlike what was previously observed from the women, I must say that your blood has become invaluable."

"Oh? In what way?" He asked her.

"Shortly after you passed out, Ms. Katsuragi started speaking about your blood. She then said things that the other medical personnel are certain that she shouldn't have known about yet because of the last test she was involved in. She seemed to mirror the behavior of a sociopath with very little interests around them afterward, but something about you stirred her."

"A sociopath? Her? No, she's nothing of the sort. Whatever test she was involved in, it crippled her conscious mind. The reason she's not herself is because she's been maimed in a very bad way. Is she alright, though?"

"She was escorted back to her room after you were carried off by security."

That's when Shinji thought of something very unorthodox to ask.

"Is it possible that my blood could be used to treat her?" He suggested.

"It's possible, but we don't know if it'll be a long-term cure or just some something she needs periodically, like a blood transfusion."

"But…you won't know for sure…unless you try. If something terrible did happen to her in an earlier test, and it maimed her, then it's your responsibility to try and mend her instead of leaving her as she is…because this isn't something she can just recover from on her own. It's like a tumor that starts out small. The smaller it is, the longer it can either go unnoticed or be treated without much difficulty, but when it gets bigger, the problems that it can cause will become bigger. And this situation with Ms. Katusagi being emotionally maimed, it is a problem that can get worse if you don't deal with it soon."

The woman then picked up one of the eight vials of his blood and sighed; even though she believed in helping the world through using the C-Genomes, any one of them that was injured by something they did ran the risk of impairing their future.

"I'll have her brought in for a transfusion, but if it doesn't do anything, we'll have to try something else," she told him.

"Thank you."

-x-

This seemed bad. When Misato learned that Gendo wasn't at the base, she felt the need to be concerned about what she saw in the mirror, of a man that looked just like her superior, with a mutated hand, killing Shinji and the red-eyed Asuka in a future that said boy was trying to keep from happening. If what had been seen was true, then it meant that Gendo was going to be the culprit of a possible double murder.

"We may have a problem," she told Asuka and Rei when she returned to the room. "Commander Ikari is not here."

"You don't think he…somehow found a way to the world Shinji's in?" Asuka asked her.

"That's what I'm afraid of finding out," she responded.

Rei, who was holding the mirror, uttered, "If he has found such a way to this other world, then it's only for one reason: To take Frenzia's mana from Ikari-Kun."

"But…he has no claim to it like Shinji does," Misato iterated for them. "Frenzia offered Shinji the chance to try and inherit it from her, and he doesn't know how to just yet, meaning his father can't take it from him, either."

"That's a deadlock, then," Asuka added. "If he can't inherit, his father can't take it from him."

"Except it won't stop him from trying to," Rei stated; Commander Ikari was not one to simply give up without a fight.

"What has happened so far with Shinji?" Misato asked them.

"He's asked the medical personnel where he is currently to perform a blood transfusion for your younger doppelgänger," answered Asuka to her as she sat down.

Rei gave her the mirror, and Misato saw into the other world, seeing Shinji standing outside a room in the hallway, holding a glass cup full of water.

-x-

They said it was unnecessary for him to him to be present when they performed the transfusion, but Shinji decided that he was going to be around to see Misato when they were done. It was his blood…and he felt some responsibility for her current state of mind.

"You're very dedicated to being present when she steps out of that room," he heard Kagami say to him.

"Does there have to be any other reason?" He asked him.

"Most others would have other reasons."

"I'm not most others. I see someone in some sort of pain, all I want is to try and help them in any way that I can."

"The Good Samaritan."

"Good Samaritan, good man, good person. Good is what makes anyone strive to do the least amount of harm…if harm can't be prevented."

Suddenly, the door opened and the female physician stepped out.

"You were very fortunate to suggest using your blood, Mr. Ikari," she told him. "We injected a vial of it into her nape and it started taking affect once administered into her nervous system. She's awake now if you wish to see her."

"Thank you," he responded, and stepped into the room.

Misato's doppelganger, with a small bandage on the back of her neck, looked more lively than she had the last time Shinji saw her.

"Hello, Ms. Katsuragi," he greeted her formally, just in case she had no memory of their first meeting.

"Hello, Mr. Ikari," she responded, sounding different, more emotional, than when they last spoke. "They told me that they used your blood on my brain or something…and it helped me recover from a test that I was involved in. So…I guess I should thank you for donating your blood."

Shinji sat down in front of her and responded, "I…just wanted to do something to help you. When they told me that you were hurt, I felt awful. Do you…remember anything?"

"I remember everything, even my lack of emotion from when I spoke to you. You said that you would check to see if my grandmother was okay. Thank you for doing so."

"You're welcome. And…if it's okay with you…I'd appreciate it if you called me Shinji. The formality requirements…aren't my cup of tea lately."

"They were never my cup of tea, either. I'll address you as Shinji…if you can address me as Misato."

"Thank you, Misato."

Misato then noticed the cup of water in his hands and pointed to it.

"What's with the water?" She asked him.

"Oh, this?" He remembered having it in his hand. "For you."

"I'm more of an orange juice person."

Shinji thought about some orange juice and decided to try and get some for her.

"I'll be right back with some," he told her.

"But…you have some in your cup," she pointed out, and Shinji saw that the water in the cup had been replaced with a yellowish fluid.

"But…this was water a moment ago," he stated, unsure if this was his doing or hers. "Um…here."

He gave it to her.

"This is OJ," she told him, setting the cup down after taking a few gulps. "Are you one, too?"

"Excuse me?"

"Someone with special powers due to an ancient heritage? A C-Genome, these people call us."

"Yes, but I refuse to be labeled as a C-Genome…and you shouldn't be labeled as one, either. We…shouldn't be defined by our abilities, Misato."

"We should be defined by who we are and what we choose to be?"

"I couldn't have said it better myself."

-x-

It was quite a city, even if it was one that had no paramilitary influence or suffered from periodic attacks from giant monsters with an agenda. But Gendo wasn't interested in any of that right now. He just wanted to find wherever the Third Child was and deprive him of the celestial matriarch's power and take it for himself.

"Hmm?" He went, looking at his gloved hand that held Adam; the First Angel was reacting to something he was hoping was the whereabouts of the Third Child. _I know you're near, boy. I will find you and you will surrender what should be rightfully mine to possess._

He followed the sensation down the street…and stood in front of a tall building.

 _Mikage?_ He thought, and entered through the front door.

-x-

Gasp! Shinji felt an insufferable presence somewhere in the building, causing him to jump out of his seat in front of Misato's doppelgänger.

"What's wrong?" She asked him, noticing that he was looking around the room.

"I have a bad feeling that something wrong is in the building now," he explained. _Why do I feel as though I should be inside Unit-01? Why do I feel like there's an Angel nearby?_

 _Shinji, your father is there with you,_ he heard a female voice that wasn't Frenzia's or any other woman or girl that he met while stranded in this world. _He's after Frenzia's mana._

It sounded like…Misato, the one he knew from his world, in his head.

"Did you hear someone talking just now, Misato?" He asked the teen girl.

"No," she answered. "Maybe you should go rest."

"Uh, yeah, that's probably what I need. Thank you for confiding in me what they made you do before we met. It helps knowing what else I need to do to resolve things."

He picked up the fallen chair and vacated the room; before his unexpected sensation that caught him by his spine, Misato had revealed to him what experiment she was in before she got hurt, and it left him feeling further displeased with Kagami and his plans…and feeling that he had to stop him before too many lines were crossed that couldn't uncrossed.

-x-

"…I think he heard me, but just barely," said Misato to the girls, sliding the mirror over to Asuka. "At least he's able to hear me a little."

When she picked up the mirror, Asuka saw her red-eyed counterpart looking at a cell phone screen, reading a recent text sent to her from Shinji. It was something about this Kagami guy creating an artificial hagoromo from a piece of a Tennyo relic, most likely because he couldn't obtain the one owned by Ceres.

"My doppelgänger seems to be being informed by Shinji what your doppelgänger told him," she told Misato. "You think he could just take the mana these people are trying to make and tempt his old man with it if he doesn't want it in favor of Frenzia's?"

"But if he gives it to him, there's no telling what his father will do afterwards," Misato expressed her concerns that it was likely that Gendo would be unpredictable and dangerous, with or without a relic of celestial history mocked up by modern people and technology.

"Commander Ikari would not be satisfied with an artificial relic," went Rei to them. "He will want the Ikari family's mana over any other mana."

"So, this is personal and cruel," Asuka stated; if Shinji's father was going to come after him for just a family-owned artifact that only could be inherited by one born into the family of a celestial being, he wasn't just a target.

No, this made him an enemy in the eyes of his father. If it had been her wanting something that promised untold power, she wouldn't let anyone, not even Shinji, stand between her and her goal.

"I don't think his old man would have any qualms about killing his son if he felt he had to," she expressed to them.

" _According to the Katsuragi girl that is his world's doppelgänger,"_ said the red-eyed Asuka in the mirror, _"they're trying to create their own hagoromo."_

" _But…that's insane, isn't it?"_ The Yui doppelgänger questioned. _"You can't create an artificial hagoromo and expect it to function the same as a genuine one."_

" _Desperate times drive one to commit desperate measures,"_ her mother responded to them. _"But if this is what Kagami has attempted, he's taking a huge gamble with manipulating forces he has no full understanding of."_

" _Hold on, Shinji's sending another text,"_ the red-eyed Asuka told them. _"He wants to get the girl out of there tonight."_

-x-

He didn't want to risk placing Misato in any danger by having her stay here any longer, so Shinji texted on the burner phone that he feared something that disturbed him was in the building with him that he couldn't shake off.

 _Still, an artificial hagoromo from a piece of Tennyo history,_ he thought as he hid the burner phone again. _That seems like a fantasy. Is it possible to achieve?_

 _If they used Misato to infuse the relic with celestial energies, all they'd need to do now is wait for it to develop into the end result,_ he heard his dead self say to him.

Being back in the misty woods with his dead doppelgänger and Frenzia again helped Shinji to think more clearly.

"Except trying to create mana artificially renders it nothing more than a blank slate," the celestial matriarch explained to him. "It demonstrates potential only, but without being exposed to foreign environments, without sampling other organisms to improve its own state of being, mana is like the animal you call a sloth. It has the capacity to do anything, but no will, no conscious drive, to do anything at all…until it begins to lose its stability and withers as it tries to adjust."

"And if it were used by a regular human? Or one with celestial blood in their veins?" Shinji asked her.

"If it were a descendant of a celestial being, the artificial mana wouldn't be as corrupting or deteriorating as it would be with a regular human. Mana that has been adapted from many places and various organisms over many lifetimes, without the influence picked up off of them, doesn't have detrimental effects on any that possess it. But mana that hasn't adapted can be influenced by the person that possesses it, causing detriments to both."

"So, what you're saying is that…a blank slate mana basically amplifies everything that's already in the regular person or the celestial descendant?" The dead Shinji asked her.

"That is right," she answered. "I've never seen it happen, but I've heard about it happening before. One species of sentient life touched by my kind gained possession of an artificially-made hagoromo that wasn't adapted to anything and the woman that had it… It's not just the mana, but the individual. A good person, without a shred of cruelty, malice or a drive to rise above others in a pursuit to dominate or control, to be the best or what have you, can become a great person…"

"And a bad person with it can just become worse than ever before," the living Shinji realized. "This artificial mana can't be entrusted to Kagami or whoever else wants it for reasons that may not be right."

"Meaning we have to get it away from them," his dead self said.

"Yeah."

"One step at a time," Frenzia expressed.

-x-

"…May I help you, sir?" A woman on the ground floor asked Gendo, a little put off by his presence and the fact that he just walked in.

Gendo approached her desk and took out a photograph.

"Yes, I need to know if you or anyone here have ever seen this young man in the picture," he stated, showing the woman the school photo of Shinji.

"Just a moment, sir," she responded, picking up the phone in front of her. "The one most likely to know more is my boss."

But Gendo didn't like this idea…and took out his gun and pointed it at her head.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to put that phone down and back away," he told her.

The woman set the phone down…and quickly pressed a button underneath the desk, triggering a silent alarm that would alert the security detail.

"Now, I'll ask you again," he said, holding the picture closer to her face, "have you seen this young man around?"

-x-

"…There's a bad feeling around us," Frenzia told the two Shinjis, looking down one side of the misty wood path.

"Earlier, I thought I heard someone trying to tell me something," the living Shinji explained, "but it sounded like a whisper. Less than a whisper, even."

"Can you decipher anything the voice had said to you?" The dead Shinji asked.

"It was barely heard, but I think it was something like, _'He's after Frenzia's mana'_."

"He?"

"And there's something else, too. I had an hallucination of sorts where I saw my father. He wanted Frenzia's mana, too, saying that I wasn't fit to possess it. But I told him that he couldn't have it because he has no claim to it, no matter what he does. It's pretty much a stalemate between us, right? I mean, if I haven't gotten it yet, I don't have it, meaning he can't take it, either, right?"

"Yes, that's true," Frenzia responded. "What if the voice you heard faintly was telling you, actually trying to warn you, really, that it was your father that was after the family mana? And what if…you're developing a new power from your celestial heritage? A power that enables you to hear voices that others can't hear."

"Like hearing ghosts?" The living Shinji asked her.

"No, Shinji," his dead self uttered. "Maybe not the voices of the dead…but the voices of the distant, the displaced. Maybe because you're from a different universe…and those you're still associated with have made an attempt to reach out to you in the waking world."

"If this is so, then you should clear your mind of everything except for the voice you heard," suggested Frenzia. "Focus only on the voice. Let it fill your ears."

Shinji sat down on the ground and against a tree, trying to do as he was instructed.

 _Focus only on the voice, Shinji,_ he instructed himself, closing his eyes. _Who is it? Who is trying to talk to me? Who wants to talk to me? And what do they want to talk to me about?_

 _He's after Frenzia's mana,_ he heard the voice echo in his mind. _He's after Frenzia's mana…mana…_

-x-

Rei held the mirror and just decided to utter for the sake of attempting to reach out to Shinji, who was being seen in that misty environment with Frenzia and his dead counterpart.

"Ikari-Kun," she went, "can you hear my voice?"

In the mirror, the boy lowered his head and looked as though he were asleep.

"Did he just nod off in his own head?" Asuka questioned. "Is that even…"

" _Ayanami… Rei…"_ They heard his voice in the mirror.

"Make him do something to indicate that he can hear you," went Misato. "Maybe raise his hand or some sort of gesture."

"Ikari-Kun…if you can hear my voice, raise your left hand," Rei told the boy.

The three women looked at Shinji, hoping that what the celestial matriarch had suggested to him was possible, that he could be able to hear them if he tried.

 _Come on, you stupid idiot,_ thought Asuka. _Do something to show that you hear us._

Shinji suddenly did something: He raised his left hand in the air in front of himself.

" _Why are you raising your hand?"_ They heard the dead Shinji ask his living counterpart.

" _I heard a voice that told me to do so,"_ he explained. _"A vacant voice."_

"Vacant?" Misato uttered, realizing that Shinji must've meant Rei, for she didn't demonstrate emotion when she spoke.

At least…not when Shinji was around. But the purple-haired woman began to suspect that the albino girl was starting to exhibit some emotion when she spoke, if only a little.

" _I think it was Ayanami's voice,"_ they heard Shinji say to his dead self.

" _Your world's version of Rei Ayanami,"_ the deceased boy spoke, his forehead looking less burnt now. _"Based upon your recollection, she's the most vacant person you've ever seen since your arrival to Tokyo-3. No emotions based on happiness, depression, rage, excluding perhaps that one time she assaulted you for expressing your opinion on your father, or even feelings of sadness. Either she's emotionally detached from the world, meaning she can't connect with others emotionally because she's numb to emotions…or she's emotionally dead, being that she can't understand them because of some sort of trauma from her past that left her crippled. If someone dies, even if they were probably sitting right next to her on the train, she wouldn't feel anything, whether it's fright or disgust."_

" _But we did see her in that lucid dream we had a while back…and there seemed to be some emotion in her. She did seem concerned, didn't she?"_

" _Yes, she did. Your absence and displacement from your world has caused her pain."_

Misato then placed her right hand on Rei's, hoping that her voice would be more clear to Shinji.

"Shinji, your father is coming after you for Frenzia's mana," she uttered. "Get out of there."

" _Misato?"_ Shinji responded. _"All I need to hear now is Asuka's voice, and I know I'm hearing their voices beyond this world."_

Misato looked at Asuka and urged her to take hold of the mirror with them; it would probably take the three of them to at least get through to him.

"Scheisse," the redhead sighed and placed her right hand on theirs. "Shinji, you idiot, your father's coming for the mana, and there's a chance he'll kill you for it. Get out of there."

" _Okay, my world's Asuka could stand to cut back on the name-calling,"_ they heard Shinji say, sounding annoyed.

" _She's always calling you something demeaning,"_ his dead self said.

" _Ever since we first met."_

Misato and Rei looked at Asuka with looks of irritation (mostly Misato's).

"What, at least he heard me," she defended her actions.

-x-

Gendo seriously didn't need this aggravation from these people and decided to take the path of most action.

"I will not be denied," he uttered, taking out his pistol and forcing his through three guards to get to the back of the building. "Where are you, Third Child?!"

-x-

The door was locked automatically, but Shinji didn't have faith in Mikage International's security. If his father was truly here, there was no telling what could be used to either stop or impede him from finding him.

"Okay, Shinji," he told himself, gathering his things and standing in front of the door to his room. "Focus and don't relent on fear."

He raised his right hand and thought of opening the door. The previous times where he was able to do things without wanting to were just random acts of celestial energies being manipulated to achieve specific feats. Now, he had to own the power that coursed through him. He had to make something happen that he wanted to happen, to help people he cared for, to keep them safe.

 _It's now or never, Shinji,_ he thought, trying to let his power flow through him like it had to have done with his dead counterpart and previous inheritors of the Rage-filled Anchor. _Unless your power! Do something that's you!_

Click! The door opened after unlocking, and Shinji felt a little elated.

"I better get Misato first," he said, stepping out of his room. "She needs to go home."

He ran down the hall to where Misato's room was in this building. It was very quiet in the halls, not to mention very empty. He could only deduce that the security was called to deal with the problem.

BANG! The sound of gunfire made it to Shinji's ears.

"Keep shooting!" He heard a man shout further down the hall.

"What the Hell is he?!" He heard another man shout.

Suddenly, Shinji saw further down the hall, seeing through the eyes of whoever was there…and saw his father being shot at, only the bullets never reached him because of a familiar type of barrier being used to protect him.

 _An AT-Field?!_ He realized, seeing what the man was seeing and saw the thing in his father's hand. _An Angel?! He put an Angel in his hand?!_

Gendo then took his gun and shot at them, either injuring them or killing them.

Shinji then ran to Misato's door and banged on it.

"Misato!" He shouted, hoping she was there. "Are you there?! I gotta get you out of here!"

"Yes, I'm here," he heard her say, and he focused on unlocking the door to her room.

Click! The locking mechanism unhinged and the door slid open, revealing the purple-haired teen in the same outfit that Shinji had seen the other women in as they were being escorted away.

Although there was no romantic affection for the girl, Shinji couldn't stop from thinking how Misato's doppelganger looked more like a girl ready for her birthday party instead of being some sort of patient at a hospital or secret installation being experimented on with some measure of dignity.

"Thank you for commenting on my wearing this outfit," she told him, which caught him off guard.

"What?" He asked her.

"You were saying that this dress makes me look more like a birthday girl than a hospital patient."

"But…I didn't say that… But I was thinking it."

She stepped out of the room, carrying a small backpack, most likely carrying nothing but small mementos from her life before this.

"Your father, why is he so displeased with you?" She asked him.

Again, Shinji didn't say anything about the situation, but she somehow knew who the culprit was. He suspected that her celestial heritage gifted her with a sort of telepathy that enabled her to know specific details of a given situation. If so, it was really quite an intellectual ability that was quite harmless.

"He's not the understanding or accepting type that a parent is supposed to be," he explained, giving her his left hand.

She accepted it and ran down the hall to get away from the danger.

BANG! The next gunshot was much louder than expected, and they saw a nearby wall get painted with a splatter of blood.

A security guard fell to the ground…and Gendo walked over him to where Shinji and Misato were.

"Oh, no," Shinji gasped.

"Shinji, I don't like this man," said Misato to him, standing behind him. "There's no trace of kindness within him at all."

Shinji saw the gun in his father's hand and knew Misato had a good reason to be afraid of him.

"Third Child," his voice reverberated through his son's ears, "where is the celestial robes of the Ikari matriarch? I have need of it."

"No, you don't have a need for it," he retorted. "You just want it for yourself because you think you have a right to it, which you don't. I don't have it, and even if I did know where it was and how to get it, I wouldn't tell you anything."

"You disappoint me with you petulance. You refuse to grow up and accept the harsh reality."

"I've lost any interest in listening to you a long time ago. Whatever it is you think of me is pointless to share because there's nothing left to even discuss."

Gendo's right hand clenched as eyes singled out the young man in front of him.

"Do you really think that, just because you serve as some sort of host to a dead boy's presence, you're any better off?" He questioned. "You think you belong here now?"

Suddenly, Shinji's body had a glowing outline and soon was accompanied by his two spiritual transients in front Gendo.

"So, you're his father?" Frenzia questioned, looking at him. "I can presume you already know who I am, do you not?"

"You're the celestial matriarch of the Ikari family of this world," he responded. "Some sort of deity."

"That I am, but I'm far from an assumed deity. As there are multiple deities, there is no one, true deity in existence. No one, true god that is referred to as God, depending upon your…religious beliefs."

"I only believe in one god, and that is God. But you're of divine heritage…and you offer your divine powers to a petulant child instead of someone that has weathered experience and a clearer understanding of the world. There's no logic in such a choice."

"He's of my family by blood, which entitles his the right to earn what could be his. You, on the other hand, you only married into the family in your world. Here, you died and you never married into my family. You have no claim to anything Shinji does, so why should you have anything he has an opportunity to get? Unless it's just simple greed…or even envy that drives you to want what won't be yours. What is your reason for being here? What brought you here?"

Gendo pointed his gun at her head, as if thinking it would harm her.

But Frenzia felt that the gun wasn't intended for her, even if it could harm her. She feared that this man that fathered her alternate universal descendant was intending to endanger the lives of the young man and the purple-haired young woman he wanted to save from harm.

"If I can't have it," he uttered, "then neither can he."

"Hold on, why do you want hers so much, anyway?" Shinji stepped in. "The people here already have a celestial hagoromo in their possession. It isn't all that different from the one Frenzia has…or had…or however it is with ancestral individuals. It has no owner. It's up for grabs. Why not take that?"

"If it's not of the Ikari family, then it has no significance," Gendo answered him.

"W…wait a minute," went Misato, stepping in. "You saying that, unless what you're after is associated in some way to this boy's family, you take no interest at all in what's being offered to you? You sound very cruel when you say that. In fact, you sound…almost like you have nothing but a vendetta against your son, like you hate him for selfish reasons you don't want to admit to."

Even Shinji had to face facts that this version of Misato was right. It sounded just like what she said about his father, that he had a vendetta against him. Maybe it was that same vendetta that led to his unclear vision of the future where he ended up getting killed by him.

"Ugh," he shuddered, unwilling to let that or the one he had where the red-eyed Asuka dies by his hand come to pass, no matter what.

And then, he thought about the gun in his hand. If he was able to get the doors to open, then, just maybe, he could do something about the gun his father had.

 _Focus, Shinji,_ he thought, trying to get the gun to do something it couldn't do. _Atomize, melt away, heat up, do something, please!_

Suddenly…

Blast! Gendo's gun shattered into dozens of pieces, disarming him.

"Aah!" He gasped.

"Move! We gotta move!" Shinji shouted, taking Misato by her left hand and running down the other hallway. _That actually helped a lot._

"Get back here!" Gendo shouted, going after the pair.

He ran through Frenzia, who just sighed and knew that things weren't going to proceed well, but had hopes for Shinji because he wasn't anything like his father.

-x-

They could've waited until tonight, but it seemed more like whatever danger was in store for Shinji and the younger doppelganger of Misato wasn't going to, so Asuka, Yui and the others ran straight towards Mikage International to get them now.

Inside the lobby, they saw at least five bodies laying around, each with a bullet hole in the head or chest, leaving a pool of blood to form under them.

"Oh," Aya shuddered, turning her head away.

Anzu inhaled and gestured the crucifix in front of her; she wasn't religious, but she believed in life after death for everyone, even those that were killed for even the most cruelest of reasons.

"Who could and would do something like this?" Yuuhi questioned as they walked around the corpses.

"Somebody with no respect for people's lives, that's for certain," said Yui to him.

-x-

"Who is this man?" Kagami asked Gladys and Wei Fei Li as they walked down the hall.

"We don't know who he is," explained Gladys, "but he seems to have something of a grudge against the Ikari boy. He had a gun raised at him and the Katsuragi girl until the gun broke into pieces, possibly the boy's doing, and they ran away."

"He's killed at least twenty of the personnel," added Wei Fei Li. "If he represents a danger to the boy, he represents a danger to the project."

"We can't risk that," Kagami told them. "Do whatever you have to in order to stop this man. We can't lose the boy and just resort to the old plan just like that."

-x-

"…So that was really your father?" Misato asked Shinji as they kept running.

"Believe me, there are times where I wish he wasn't," Shinji told her, and then stopped when they reached the room where they had their meals.

"I want that family hagoromo, boy!" They heard Gendo in the hall, and hid under a counter in the hopes that he wouldn't find them in here.

"You're trying to inherit your family's celestial robes, aren't you?" Misato whispered to Shinji.

He nodded that he was.

"Why?"

"Because…if I can get it, if I can do something to help others so that they don't have to suffer any more tragedy…then that would be a good thing…wouldn't it? I mean, something that could help people that is beyond ourselves…but within a reasonable reach?"

"But…won't that mean that anyone could take it from you if you got it? Or would try to pressure you into giving it up?"

Shinji turned away from her and at the door to the room. He couldn't risk thinking about the possibilities of the mana being taken from him if he didn't have it yet. And as bad as things seemed now, he was making this all up as he went down this path to try and inherit Frenzia's power. All he could think about was protecting the people that mattered to him; he wanted to keep Asuka, Yui, Anzu, the Mikage twins, Toya, Yuuhi, Suzumi, Misato, even Q-Chan safe from harm, even though he barely knew them. They were part of his life now…and as long as he was here, he wanted to do whatever it took to keep them safe.

"I could kiss you for thinking all of that," he heard Misato say to him.

He could've said something about her ability to know what he was thinking, but decided against it.

"Where are you hiding?!" Gendo's voice reverberated out in the hall.

They heard the sound of rumbling out there and Misato reacted to this sense of dread by holding onto Shinji's sides.

"Sorry," she apologized.

Suddenly, the doors opened and Gendo stepped inside the room.

"You can't hide from me!" He yelled at them. "I will find you! I will hunt you down!"

-x-

"He can't hide forever from him," said Asuka, seeing the brutality that Commander Ikari unleashed and how he wouldn't settle for anything less. "Come on, stupid! You broke his gun! Do something to break him!"

Unfortunately, Misato was the only one holding the mirror, so the redhead's voice couldn't get to Shinji at all. And all any of what she, Asuka and Rei saw was Shinji hiding under a counter with Misato's doppelganger to avoid being seen by Gendo. Until they saw Shinji come out of hiding and face the brutal man.

" _No matter what you try, it's always going to be a stalemate, Father,"_ they heard him say to Gendo. _"I haven't inherited Frenzia's mana, so there's no way you can take it. You can't take what hasn't been obtained, so you're wasting your time here."_

" _No, you're trying my patience,"_ they heard Gendo say, raising his right hand up, revealing the grotesque creature that appeared to be embedded within the flesh of his palm. _"I deserve it more than you don't, boy."_

"Gott im Himmel, what the Hell is that in his hand?!" Asuka gasped, grabbing the mirror with her left hand. "That's sick!"

" _Very sick,"_ they heard Shinji utter. _"What is that and what do you think you're doing with it?"_

" _It's not for you to know anything,"_ Gendo told him.

Shinji sighed and then uttered, _"That seems to be your belief, that nobody's allowed to know anything you know about. Even when things seem difficult, you refuse to divulge anything, thinking you have an edge on others. You're selfish that way. You know, at first I feared the possibility of this all being nothing more than a dream meant to toy with what I want out of my life that is real after I lost consciousness inside the Eva. But I found myself getting hurt every now and then, either by accident or through some minor intention on the part of someone else. This is no dream_ _…_ _but you're a nightmare if you're really here. All you're going to do is cause_ _…_ _unnecessary torment over something you can't have, that you will never have."_

" _And you think you won't cause any torment here?"_

" _I won't deny that I have in a sense, but there was a reason for it all. Call it a bad case of unexpected heritage causing unexpected problems. But I've gotten a degree of control over it. Nobody else has suffered because of me or what I couldn't understand at the time."_

" _You've clearly let this world have an affect upon you. But you don't belong here."_

" _Does anyone belong anywhere_ _…_ _and not just because someone says so?"_

" _You belong in the Eva where you serve a purpose."_

" _And if I were to say that I don't believe in that and refuse to get in the Eva again after everything that has happened up to now?"_

" _You're free to your opinions, but you don't have a choice in the matter. Unless the Angels are defeated, mankind has no future."_

And just then, Misato's doppelganger came out from behind the counter and looked at the two, a look of disgust on her face.

" _He's lying, Shinji,"_ she uttered. _"Whatever it is he says about whatever it is you have to deal with, it's nothing more than lies. He knows more than he says."_

The door to the room opened and the ladies saw Ritsuko step inside.

"Is there anything new to discuss?" She asked them.

"Commander Ikari found a way to the world Ikari-Kun is in," went Rei to her.

"He's after this celestial power that only Shinji or some other fifth or sixth generation Ikari can get," added Misato.

"And he has something seriously ugly in his right hand," finished Asuka.

Because none of them were looking at the mirror, they failed to see Gendo try to make a move on Misato's doppelganger, only to be countered by Shinji, who somehow had a knife in his possession.

To be continued…

A/N: Sorry it took so long to finish this chapter. What do you expect to see in the next one?


	20. Angel Punishment

Creation began on 05-21-17

Creation ended on 06-30-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Angel Punishment

Shinji recognized the orange color of the glow, the hexagonal shape that expanded with each hit, and the fear it invoked every time. He knew it as an AT-Field, but what surprised him was that his father was somehow using one, which shouldn't have been possible.

 _Something's off with your old man, Shinji,_ his deceased counterpart informed him. _The bad vibe he's giving off is a lot more than just a sense of hatred directed towards you. It's originating from two distinct sources._

 _Can you or Frenzia ascertain where?_ He asked him.

 _It's his heart and right hand,_ answered Frenzia to him. _His heart is full of disgust towards you…but his right hand has become an extension for him to express his hatred. The right hand of destruction._

 _Right hand of destruction?_

The knife he attempted to use on his father had broken and the piece that had broken off nearly pierced his neck, but a twist of fate made it so that it just pierced his waist non-fatally.

"Aah!" He gasped, staggering backwards as he pulled the piece out.

Gendo got up from where Shinji knocked him down, surprised that his son actually tried to use a knife against him.

"You know better than to try and harm your father," he told Shinji.

He wasn't bleeding as much as he thought, but Shinji really needed to get his wound stitched shut.

"And sometimes, I have to wonder if we're really related," he retorted. "Some people that say we're alike, but I see no such comparison between us. You don't see me sending anyone out in an Eva to go face an Angel or give up their lives just to face monsters they don't know about."

Because his glasses fell off when Shinji tried to attack him, Misato got a good look at the older man and was immediately repulsed by him. It wasn't even like the possibility of Shinji one day looking similar to him when he got older. No, it was just the way he made her feel, which was pure disgust. With Shinji, she felt a sense of warmth and compassion to go with his sense of wanting to show selflessness. But with this man that was his father, it was like having to risk spending whatever length of time you had being next to a black hole that threatened to end everything around you…and at the same time as being cut multiple times with a knife coated in every type of poison known to kill.

And then, there were Gendo's eyes. They were completely dark, like someone had managed to destroy or remove all the light in the world he lived in.

Even Shinji was repulsed by the sight of him.

"Holy God," he gasped.

-x-

"…Can I say something about the commander, Misato?" Asuka asked, seeing Gendo the way the purple-haired woman's younger doppelgänger and Shinji saw him.

"What is it, Asuka?" Misato responded.

"He looks like he's turning into something very much like an Angel."

The purple-haired tactical strategist couldn't fault Asuka for saying that. Even she thought Gendo was slowly turning into a monster. It had to be because of that thing in his hand.

 _It's just as I feared,_ thought Ritsuko, seeing Gendo in the mirror as he approached Shinji. _We didn't know what could happen to a human if grafted with First Angel on a long-term basis. Maybe being in that alternate universe is triggering adverse effects to him that amplify his more-pronounced character traits. He already had a mean streak and the Angel's just making it worse than ever._

"If he's projecting an AT-Field, why doesn't Shinji do the same?" Asuka questioned; the redhead had theorized that if Gendo was somehow able to project an AT-Field similar to the Angels, it was likely that Shinji would be able to do so, as well.

"It is possible that Ikari-Kun simply cannot," went Rei; she simply suspected that Shinji was not able to demonstrate any powers exhibited by the Angels, not when regular people were incapable of such feats.

-x-

 _It probably has something to do with that thing in his hand,_ Shinji thought, unable to get any closer towards his father because of the AT-Field he was emitting from his hand. _Should I try the Rage-filled Anchor? It helped save Aki from the Progenitor. Can it siphon the negative energy from his heart?_

"You will hand over the celestial robes of the Ikari matriarch, boy," Gendo told him, pushing him backwards using the AT-Field.

"I just told you. I don't have them, and even if I did, I wouldn't let you or anyone with wrongful intentions gain possession of them. To desire power for the wrong reasons, even to just have power for the sake of having it… It's not always right."

"Like you would know?"

"Only because I've seen the results before. A guy just a little older than myself was possessed by a dead man's soul who received such power from his wife…and it started changing him. He became obsessive and possessive, like the power he had received not only became like a poison for him, it brought out a darkness in him that was better left locked away. Maybe that's how it starts when one receives power from one that has it: We get it when something happens that you don't expect to get involved in…and it affects us in ways we wish it didn't, maybe makes us feel like we're weak because we couldn't do something to help someone, that nothing we wanted to happen would happen if we were able to change the outcome, and then we lose sight of why we either received the power or desired it to begin with."

Gendo had managed slam his son against a table.

"And it looks like you're feeling very weak. Very pathetic." He told Shinji.

"And how do you feel right now? Do you feel that if you have some measure of celestial power, you can do anything, that you'll be part of something much bigger than yourself? You won't. You can't. Ever. It wouldn't be right or acceptable."

"Right or acceptable? Do you have any idea how naïve, how childish you sound saying that? You are in no position to tell me what is right or acceptable."

"And you are?!" They heard a new female voice shout out. "Really?!"

Gendo turned around…and saw Yui with several other people, including the Second Child, and stopped projecting Adam's AT-Field.

"You sound just like him when I met him years ago," Yui told him, "except he wasn't like you are right now. Rebellious? Yes, he was that. Willing to defy authority? Totally. But I crossed the line for getting involved with him, just as I crossed the line for getting involved with and then breaking up with my previous boyfriends."

"You crossed the line? Just because you were involved with my doppelgänger?" He asked her, confused by her choice of words.

"You and Shinji don't know my full history, so I'll share the darkest parts. I was like a magnet for anyone that could show me how to get away from what I hated at the time, including my own parents. Reckless choices, poor judgment, truancy, excelled at the science of biology, had at least ten affairs with ten men in my youth. I'm not the poster child of a good girl. I don't even know for certain what kind of person my doppelgänger from your universe was like, since Shinji's very memory of her is, for all intents and purposes, crippled because of you. I ended up being nicknamed the Vixen of Madonna because of my sour history…and here's my mark."

Yui pulled away the right side of her blue and purple blouse in front of Gendo and Shinji…and revealed a discolored bruise that covered the lower portion of her neck's right side, the entirety of her shoulder and probably extended to some of the arm, but was kept hidden by the rest of the blouse and bra.

 _She got that…because of ten affairs?_ Shinji thought; he hadn't seen this mark before, in either the past when he met her or from his deceased counterpart's memories, indicating that he'd never seen it, either.

 _I…I never knew,_ he heard his deceased self express.

-x-

"…A bruise like that…from ten affairs?" Asuka went, seeing the alternate version of Shinji's mother revealing her past injury. "Verdamnmt, she got around."

"The Vixen of Madonna, hmm?" Misato added, reminded of her past with Kaji. _She doesn't even strike me as the type that is a vixen._

 _So, in this alternate universe, not only is Ikari-Kun's mother not married to Commander Ikari, but she was engaged in multiple relationships with various men,_ thought Rei, unsure of what Commander Ikari thought of this woman…or what Ikari-Kun now felt about her.

Even Ritsuko, who summoned Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki to the room, was somewhat appalled by the injury this woman possessed.

Fuyutsuki, on the other hand, was wondering how she got a mark like that had to be a permanent injury.

" _And you care to know who gave me this?"_ Yui asked Gendo, who appeared momentarily distracted by the sight of the mark. _"It was your doppelgänger, Gendo, the same night he was murdered for almost killing me when he showed up at my house, wasted as Hell. I don't say this as much as I don't say a lot of things I should say a lot of, but only two good things came out of that bad relationship with who had to have been the most violent man of my past: I ended up walking away from that lousy side of my life…and I had Shinji, who I might as well have condemned because I neglected him a lot. That's on me, though. He didn't know a thing about you."_

They saw Gendo now standing about a foot away from her, as if wanting to touch her, even though she wasn't really his wife in that universe, but refrained from doing so.

" _You're very different from her,"_ they heard him say to her, and then raised his right hand to touch her face. _"Very different."_

But he never got the chance to know what she felt like, for the next thing any of them saw was the unexpected surprise attack that came from behind him.

-x-

Gendo, because he took his eyes off his primary reason for even coming to this universe, was jumped on from behind by Shinji, who held him by his neck with his arms; the boy had learned enough about AT-Fields to know how similar they functioned to the type of energy shields depicted in comic books, and deduced that if his father had one in his possession, he could only defend himself from what was in front of him, not from all sides or even behind him.

"Aaaurgh!" Gendo grunted, trying to get Shinji off him. "Get off me, you pathetic disgrace!"

Even as he was slammed against a countertop, Shinji held on with all that he was right now, forgetting that he was ever injured.

"Go!" He yelled at them. "Take Misato! Get outta here!"

Aya and Aki ran to Misato and grabbed her.

"Don't worry, we're here to get you home," said the female twin.

"But what about Shinji?" Misato asked them, seeing the brutal man continue to struggle against his own son around the cafeteria.

"Run! Go!" Shinji told them. "He won't stop until he gets what he came for! Get Misato outta here!"

They fled the room, but Asuka stayed behind a bit longer, concerned for this Shinji.

"Don't worry about me!" Shinji told her. "They still need me alive! I'm no good to them dead! And this isn't over yet! Run!"

And then, she was dragged away by Yui, who also seemed uncertain about what Shinji was doing now.

"Yui!" Gendo shouted. "Yui!"

But the woman didn't return to him. She was very different from the woman he knew and loved. There was no chance in this universe for her to be his.

"Aaah! Damn boy!" He called Shinji, bashing him against a wall near a table.

"Aaaurgh! Urgh! Fool! Rage! Mana! Ceres! Poison!" Shinji grunted, at the end of his current goal against his father, and seeing the table's edge. "Aaurgh! Urgh! Let's go!"

He shifted enough of his own weight to the left and caused them both to hit their heads on the edge, falling to the ground.

FLASH! Shinji was enveloped in light, and then found himself in the misty wood again with Frenzia and his deceased counterpart.

"What…what happened?" He asked them.

"You slammed your head against a table in an effort to stop your father," Frenzia answered him.

"Am I…dead?"

"No," his dead self clarified. "You just knocked yourself out cold. You're far from dead."

Shinji sat down on the ground and sighed.

"My father may cause more problems than I thought I could manage with everyone's help," he told them. "I fear what Asuka and I saw in the future is nearing."

"Not while the ruins of my own soul still linger around," his dead self uttered; no matter what became of his spiritual essence, he wouldn't let Asuka or his mother suffer because of his living counterpart's cold-hearted father.

"That thing in your father's hand," went Frenzia to them; she addressed Gendo as being both their father because of both being sired by the same guy in both worlds, regardless of individual circumstances. "It seemed…as alive as he was…but was being corrupted."

"Huh?" Both Shinjis reacted.

"It looked like somebody tried to splice a dog fetus with his hand," the dead one expressed.

"I barely recognized him," the live one confessed. "He was starting to look like…like…"

But he couldn't say it. He didn't need to say it, for they knew what he meant by it. In his memories, the boy that was addressed mainly by his father as the Third Child started to compare him to the inhuman monsters he had been forced to face. It wasn't exactly like he was becoming one, but he was demonstrating the ugliness of his behavior towards people, including him.

"It's just as you once said about power and those that either have it or are given it," Frenzia sighed. "It slowly starts to corrupt you, bring out the darkness that's better left unseen."

"And if he ever had the power of mana, regardless of whether or not it's owned by a family with a long history or a blank slate that was recently made, there's no telling what would happen," the live boy expressed his concerns about the situation.

"He wouldn't be human, anymore," the dead boy stated his opinion. "He'd be just another representation of the stuff of nightmares brought to life."

"Except that he can never possess my mana, you two," the celestial matriarch assured them. "He might've married into the Ikari family in his world, but that doesn't mean he's truly an Ikari. You're either born into the family…or you're not. If you're not, there's no chance of inheriting the mana. That right, however small, however hopeless it seems…it's just something you have the instant you take your first breath of life…and stays with you until you die."

"The divine right," said the dead Shinji realized, "which I didn't know I had…because I spent most of the time just trying to enjoy life with Asuka, wanting to forget about my celestial heritage that I felt was a bane on my life. Of course, even if I did know, it couldn't have changed anything. Not like the way things are changing now."

"Still, it could've been you," Shinji told him.

"No, not me. It's what I believe. It's gotta be you, man. It's always been you. You're the only one out of the both of us who still breathes the breath of life and resides in the unfortunate generation with the Rage-filled Anchor."

But it wasn't all that the living Shinji believed in, that he chose to believe in. Ever since he got here, ever since he met everyone, those that mattered to the both of them, he wanted to believe in something his dead self didn't believe in.

"If we got Misato away from Mikage International, then we're one less situation and another step closer to dealing with everything wrong with the present," he told them.

"And we'll deal with the remaining problems," said Frenzia.

-x-

By the time Kagami and his security staff arrived to the cafeteria, his twin cousins, the Ikari women, the redhead and the Katsuragi girl were gone, leaving Shinji on the ground with his head over a small pool of blood that came from the head of the man next to him that had something unusual in his right hand.

Shinji's eyes snapped open and looked up at Kagami, surprising him. He raised his right hand and pointed to the man.

"Right hand…dangerous," he told him, and then lost conscious again.

 _Dangerous?_ Kagami thought, curious. "Take this man to a holding cell. Send the boy back to his room with a guard."

"Yes, sir," said Wei Fei Li, grabbing the man and dragging him away by his arms.

Gladys had two men cart Shinji away.

-x-

"Okay, I think we can slow down," said Anzu to the others as they ran down the street, away from Mikage International, slowing down to catch her breath, and then turned to look at Misato. "Nice to finally meet you, Ms. Katsuragi."

"Likewise, ma'am," she responded, looking at Asuka and Yui. "Are you all friends of Shinji's?"

"Friends…and family," said Aya to her, seeing that she was a dead ringer for the adult woman that Shinji knew from his world, only younger. "Are you alright? I mean, you were there for a long time, so we don't know if…"

"I'm fine," she told them. "I…I was in a dark place for a short while until Shinji had his blood used to undo all that."

"His blood?" Yuuhi questioned. "How'd his blood help you?"

Leaning on a nearby tree, the purple-haired teen explained, "Transfusion in my neck, undoing whatever harm was done to my brain, my conscious. Shinji set me free. He saved me."

"He's been saving each of us," said Yui. "A lot more than we've saved him."

"That was his father," went Asuka, unsure of how to process this new wrinkle. "How is he here? Why is he here?"

"He wanted the Ikari family's hagoromo," Misato answered her. "But he can't have it. He can't get it because he's not related to the family by blood, not like Shinji and his relatives are. I mean, you two (she looks at Anzu and Yui)…are his blood relatives, right? Two lifetimes ahead of his."

"That's right," answered Anzu.

She looked at each of them, seeing and feeling an aura of energy around them that mirrored Shinji's, and Misato couldn't help but smile.

"You're each his motivation for wanting to inherit his family's hagoromo," she expressed. "You affect him in a way that people he knew in his past haven't been able. You make him happy to be here, to be alive, to be accepted."

-x-

Gendo awoke and found himself in a dimly-lit room, a man with a Taser standing by the door. He looked down at his right hand and saw that Adam was still there.

"Where am I?" He demanded from the guard, but he didn't answer. "Speak!"

But the guard remained quiet. He had orders to simply detail the man. And if he acted up, the room was equipped to release sleeping gas.

-x-

Shinji came to and found himself back in the room he was assigned, feeling like he'd been hit with a lot of marbles.

"I can't believe I did that," he uttered.

"Did what, exactly?" He heard a female voice, and saw Gladys sitting in a chair in front of him.

He hadn't noticed her being present in the room and answered, "Slamming that guy's head against the table when I jumped him. Um, how long was I out?"

"Four hours," she explained. "You said that the man's right hand was dangerous. How do you know of this, exactly?"

"I saw him use the thing that was stuck to his hand. Anyone trying to shoot at him wouldn't be able to so long as they were in front of him."

"And…do you know why he was here? During the commotion, Ms. Katsuragi was able to get away…and we can't find her."

"I feared for her safety and had her run. The man…was here for your hagoromo…and was willing to harm anyone he had to in order to get it."

"Just the hagoromo? He wasn't here for either of you or the research of the C-Genome project?"

"I don't believe he knows anything about your project…or cares about why you're so driven for it. All I know is that everyone's lives are in danger so long as he's here and the hagoromo is nearby."

-x-

"Were you able to figure out what this thing is embedded in the man's hand?" Kagami asked Alec, speaking to him on the phone in his office about Gendo.

"All I can say so far is that whatever this thing is, it's not human and doesn't match up with anything currently known by science. It has organic compounds not found in any other life-form found on the planet." Alec explained; whatever this thing was in the man's hand, it was unlike what he was originally tasked with working on. "It might not be of this world, but I can say this for certain: It has no relation, whatsoever, to the Tennyo or C-Genomes. There's no comparison, not even a hint of a comparison."

Kagami was intrigued by this. Whoever this man was, he was playing host to something not of this world and nearly jeopardized the C-Genome project by endangering the boy that was the only male C-Genome alive.

"For now, keep this man confined," he ordered. "Whatever this…organism is, the Ikari boy said that it was dangerous…and this unwanted danger brings unnecessary risks to the project."

"There is something else that you should know about this man," Alec informed him. "I did a genetics test on him to see if there was anyone related to him, but his DNA is…damaged."

"Damaged?" He questioned.

"Human beings have twenty-three chromosome pairs that make up their DNA. But this man is missing some of his…and they've been replaced with whatever organics this thing in his hand is."

-x-

"…I can't believe he knocked his own father out," Misato expressed, setting the mirror down.

"I don't think he could believe it, either," said Asuka, picking up the mirror. "What is this here?"

Everyone looked in the mirror and saw not Shinji, but Asuka's red-eyed counterpart, sitting back at the hotel room with everyone else.

" _So…there are two Shinjis…and one of them was your boyfriend?"_ They heard Misato's younger doppelgänger ask the girl.

" _That's right,"_ the red-eyed Asuka answered her. _"It's…complicated, but he died a year ago to keep from killing me because of a curse he had that stemmed from his celestial heritage…and his ghost came back shortly after the Shinji you met appeared here from another universe."_

" _So, there's another universe with others like ourselves out there?"_ Misato asked them.

" _Based on the memories we saw from the living Shinji's mind, it's safe to say that there are alternates to most of us in this room,"_ answered Anzu to her. _"It seems crazy the more you think about it, but the thing of it is that, just because there is an alternate universe to our own, it doesn't necessarily mean that the people we're doubles or alternates to are anything like ourselves. Alternates are…often always different from each other in any universe."_

" _I don't understand exactly what you mean by that."_

" _Say that you're looking at yourself in a mirror,"_ suggested the doppelgänger of Yui to her. _"The mirror is perfectly stable, no defects or flaws in your reflection. Then, the mirror cracks and shatters, resulting in you seeing yourself in as many different, cracked pieces as imaginable, each cracked piece, each reflection, completely different from the rest. In this universe, you're you, but in the universe that our live Shinji is from, you're older, nearing your thirtieth year of life. There's probably a dozen or so universes with various similarities between them, but they could be anything or anyone. Maybe there are universes where we each know each other like in this one. Maybe there's one where we don't know each other at all. One where we're not even the same people, too."_

" _What, like, there's one where Shinji's a girl, even?"_ Misato's doppelgänger suggested.

" _That's right,"_ the red-eyed Asuka answered her. _"Crazy, we can get clearly. But we focus on this universe because the only bits of the other one we've ever seen were from an encounter that involved Shinji. We shouldn't concern ourselves completely over who we are in other places that may or may not exist at all."_

" _Uh, right. That man, his father… He wasn't very social at all."_

" _He might actually be the worst example of bad fathers,"_ they heard Aya say to them. _"He's completely cold to Shinji. Not a shred of kindness to him."_

Then the mirror seemed to focus on the doppelgängers of Asuka and Yui, who were both sitting one of the two beds in the room.

" _I never knew about your bruise,"_ Asuka told her.

" _It's not something I broadcast,"_ Yui responded, not looking at her.

" _Does it hurt when you move your arm or when someone touches your shoulder?"_

" _No…but its discoloration is something that will follow me to my grave."_

" _I think Shinji, both of them, actually, was surprised to see you had a mark like that."_

" _I always cover it so that he would never have to see it. I'm not one to explain everything about my sordid past. Like I said before, I'm no poster child for a good girl. Looking back, there were many things I wasn't proud of. My strained relationship with my father was one of them. I never got to apologize to him for my behavior after he killed Gendo. I never even got to say goodbye to him when I found out he died in prison. I blamed myself for what happened to him. I went and dishonor him by fooling around with people."_

" _But you turned your life around a bit after everything that happened."_

" _It doesn't temper the regret I live with each day, though. And thinking back further, the last time I even had a dream about my father was the day before Shinji was born. It was a weird dream, too."_

" _A weird dream about your father? In what way?"_

For a moment, people's eyes were on Fuyutsuki, reminded that in that universe Shinji was now part of, he was Yui's father, and her actions, her choices, got him thrown in prison and killed years after.

" _It's sunny,"_ they heard Yui's voice, _"and there's a lake and large tree. We're talking about something, but I don't know what, exactly. I'm also holding a little boy in my arms, probably Shinji as a baby…but I feel as though my attention span is not focused on him for some reason. Whether I was being distant to him or not is something I can't answer for some reason. Then…my dream shifts to a view of the sun, the moon and the Earth…and then some black sphere floating in space…ending with a woman shrouded in darkness, with only strands of glowing, blue hair and a red spiral as the only light to identify her as a woman."_

 _Impossible,_ Fuyutsuki thought; the first part of this Yui's dream being described…was identical to the memory of the day he recalled where he met the Yui he knew at the lake in Hakone by the largest tree that had been there at the time when Shinji was still little. _She dreamt that day…but didn't hear anything of it?_

He recalled that day as clear as though it were only the day before…and the conversation they had regarding the Evangelion.

" _When Man created the Evangelion,"_ he remembered asking her after speaking about everything else, including her decision to participate in the Contact Experiment of the Eva, _"were we trying to create a clone of God?"_

" _Yes,"_ he remembered her answer. _"Humans can only live on the Earth. But an Eva can live forever…along with the human soul it carries within. When the sun, moon and Earth are gone, Eva will exist with the soul inside it. It'll be lonely, but so long as one person lives…"_

" _It'll be eternal proof that mankind truly existed."_ His own words echoed in his mind. _This Yui dreamt of that day._

" _It seems like the ends of your dream resemble something… I had a nightmare about three weeks after Shinji… No, never mind it,"_ he heard the Second Child's doppelgänger say in the mirror to Yui's doppelgänger. _"It's probably nothing."_

" _When people say that, something that might be nothing might actually be something,"_ Yui told her. _"What was your dream about?"_

" _I saw Shinji, but I wasn't sure if it was the same boy I fell in love with. There was anger, but something else was there, too. I don't know what. He's in space and his eyes were the coldest I had ever seen. No sense of life in him. It was like…whatever past he used to live in…or wherever it was he ended up before he became what I saw him as…something so awful happened to him that it killed him inside, leaving nothing but a miasma of misery he couldn't escape. He never looked so broken, so disgraced…so…so much in pain."_

" _In your dream…you saw Shinji do something so awful to someone, didn't you?"_ Yui asked her.

" _I saw him go after a purple giant, just like the one our new Shinji was forced to pilot. Inside the giant was a woman that looked just like you, but he wasn't interested in trying to talk to her. Shinji wasn't interested in anything remotely positive relating to her."_

" _You…saw Shinji…kill me?"_

" _No…but I saw him try to. It was like he had nothing left in him at all, like he was stripped of his heart or something. Like a bad seed. No capacity for any emotion. He was the red-eyed Rei or blue-eyed me, only worse than ever. No sense of pity or remorse. No feeling of right or wrong."_

" _He seemed like a boy who needed to be pitied. Are you sure he didn't say anything? Even just one word would be something."_

" _He never said anything, Yui…but there was something else about him that seemed off. Maybe it's just because Shinji and I watched old Disney films, but it makes me wonder…if this Shinji truly had anyone's concern for his welfare. What it must've been like for this boy…to have absolutely nothing left of his former life…not even a memory of a happier time to reflect upon…in the middle of the night?"_

" _To have nothing…and to be nothing… It's no different…from being dead inside."_

Then, either because she had heard enough for now or because she put the mirror down, Asuka got up and walked out of the room.

"Asuka?" Misato asked, but the redhead just up and left the room.

Rei picked up the mirror, but it didn't show anything or anyone but her own reflection.

-x-

"…So, you have no clue as to where Ms. Katsuragi was taken?" Kagami asked Shinji in his office later that day after he was seen for his abdomen cut.

"No, sir," he answered him, trying to disregard the minor bandage covering where the broken knife blade pierced him.

"You could've gone with her."

"If I had reneged on my end, I'd be no better than a common criminal. Also, I have to make sure that you don't need a reason to renege on me. If she has left and ends up returning to her home or somewhere far from here, you are, more or less, honoring your end of the deal, meaning I have to honor my end, no matter what."

This surprised Kagami. Honestly, he had the small anticipation that Shinji would, sooner or later, try to escape with Ms. Katsuragi. But instead, the young man had chosen not to, and all because the female C-Genomes had been removed and sent home. It was like he had nothing to do beyond protecting them from some form of harm.

"Curious, how you're taking this all very serious," he told Shinji.

"The only thing I'm taking seriously about everything that's happened so far since I got here…is the unjustifiable actions that you, the Progenitor, before he was dealt with, and Mikage International have committed against the Tennyo descendants, Kagami. You say you wanted to use the descendants to benefit mankind on a global scale, but the methods you employed were less than excusable. In my heart, such methods are inexcusable. Your so-called good intentions were paved on bad roads of instability. In a very subtle way, you remind me of a friend's father, who was just as cruel as I have been led to believe you are capable of being in the pursuit of perfection, and it sickens me a little…because even if it is achieved, there will still be imperfection within such perfection. But I shall still honor my part of the would-be deal to cooperate with you…so long as all of you leave Aya and the other Tennyo descendants alone. I don't care what happens to me, so long as they're spared. But be warned, if any of you so much as makes an attempt on their right to refuse you in your goal, or to even go after them again…and I will not be held responsible for filling these halls with your blood."

And this warning surprised Kagami more than Shinji's willingness to remain with them. If he could carry out such out such a threat (and something told him that he could), it would've made their in-progress research on him all the more incredible. As human as he might've been most of the time, this Shinji Ikari was the most impressive C-Genome they had ever encountered.

"I'll consider myself warned, then, young man," he told Shinji.

Sometimes, it surprised Shinji to have his dead self and Frenzia's influence augment his own sense of defiance to such a degree that it felt like it was actually himself that was making the threat heard. And when he thought about the women that could've suffered from the future he had changed with his presence, he thought of Aya, the one who found him when he fell into this world, Asuka, whom he wanted to protect from Mikage International if they took an interest in her, and this Chidori girl he hadn't met yet, but saw die in the previous future in Yuuhi's arms, something he didn't want to see happen in any future because it was just too painful.

"Is there anything you need me to do for your scientists while I'm up, Mr. Mikage?" He asked Kagami.

"No, that will be all, Mr. Ikari," Kagami answered him. "Go rest until tomorrow. We're hoping the next test you're involved in will be most promising."

Shinji got up and turned to leave the office, passing Wei Fei Li and being escorted back to his room by Gladys, allowing the two men to converse privately.

"You really think he'd kill us if we even had just one of the female C-Genomes here?" Wei Fei Li questioned him. "We shouldn't have to honor the deal just because he gave himself over to us."

"I dare not provoke his wrath," Kagami told him. "There is something about him that may be…more than what he shares right now. Doesn't he make you curious in any way?"

"What I'm curious about…is how he was able to take down a man over half his age…when our security guards couldn't stop him with mere bullets or tasers?"

As Gladys brought Shinji back to his room, the woman stopped him from entering for a brief moment.

"Do you care to explain how you were able to take down the man from earlier?" She asked him. "Or at least who he is?"

"I jumped him and hit his head against the table when he came after Misato and I," he explained to her.

"Don't take it personal, young Ikari, but it seems like this man targeted you when he showed up. Seven good men died because of him."

Shinji looked away from her and at the floor in between them.

"Who were they?" He asked her.

"What do you mean?" She questioned.

"I mean…who were they? What were their names? Did you know any of them? Did they have any family? Any kids of their own?"

Gladys didn't expect to hear this line of questioning from Shinji.

"They were all single. None of them had any immediate next of kin or family…and I didn't know any of them."

"Still…it hurts to know that they're dead, doesn't it?"

"It could've been you that was killed."

Shinji sighed and told her, "Sometimes, I wonder why people like that don't try to kill me. If I wasn't cursed with such a power that frightens me a little because of the things that happen beyond my sense of control, I'd probably be less than a sought-after object and more of a person overlooked."

"We can't change who we are," she told him.

"Yes, we can," he responded. "We change who we are…by changing our decisions. Isn't that one of the gifts we're all given? The power of free will and the ability to make choices…and then deviate from the decisions we make, that others made before us? Those that can see or want to see the alternatives beyond a given choice will often find them…and those that don't want to believe in the power of alternatives can't see them."

"And to those that do believe…and lack the will to achieve such alternatives?"

"Then they live and die with the regret of never trying."

Gladys then sighed and uttered to him, "Be more careful next time someone like that shows up. You're irreplaceable, even if you think you're invincible."

"Everyone is irreplaceable. You can replace a bodyguard with another one, but you can't replace memories of the replaced bodyguard."

-x-

"…Asuka, stop," Misato ordered the redhead as she stopped in front of the damaged Unit-02. "What's wrong, Asuka?"

"Nothing's wrong," the girl responded. "What would make you think something's wrong?"

"What those two were saying in the mirror… You seemed disturbed by what your alternate said."

"I don't know what you're talking about. That red-eyed girl with no sense to keep away from Shinji doesn't phase me in the least."

"Still, what she said she experienced as a nightmare seemed pretty…disturbing."

"Only because it happened to her."

"And what his mother's alternate revealed about her sour history? The Vixen of Madonna? That's gotta make you wonder how Shinji feels about her."

"Actually, I try not to think about it. Still, he had a backbone to knock his old man out like that. You'd think he'd do something like that often."

"Not everything comes easy to Shinji, Asuka. His past is full of hurt that simply can't be overlooked… And I still want to know why you walked out after your alternate and the one of his mother were talking about what they experienced."

"There's nothing to talk about with those two."

"Oh, really?"

Asuka frowned and sighed; there was no talking her way out of this with Misato.

"A nightmare where Shinji looks broken to the point of being dead inside? Their chat about some variation of him… It reminded me of a bad dream I had about Shinji the night before the Twelfth Angel. He didn't look anything like he usually does. Spineless and full of cowardice, I can put up with about him. But dead inside…and full of rage, driven by a desire for revenge, even trying to choke me or break my neck? There are times where I wonder just how fragile he really is…and how much it'd take to break him."

"Sometimes, I think the perils of piloting the Eva and his lack of bonds here leave him starved for what others around him have."

"I saw him kill me."

"What?!"

"In my dream…I saw him kill me. I said something to him…that he might've took personal. Or maybe…he misinterpreted it. I don't know for sure, but in the end, he killed me. He was broken… Something happened to him that he didn't recover from…if he was even able to recover at all."

"What happened to him?"

"Don't know."

-x-

"…Um, Toya, Yuuhi and I could take you to Suzumi's where you'll be safe, Misato," said Aya to the purple-haired girl as she was getting changed out of the dress and into her regular clothes in the suite's bathroom.

"No," she responded, dressed in blue jeans and a black halter under a red jacket, her hair tied into a ponytail. "I mean, I could stay out of this…but I guess I'm like you guys. I want to help Shinji. He's really something else that reaches out to your heart and fills it with hope or renews the hope one lost."

"But Shinji risked his life to get you out of there. And his father's there now. Do you really want to go back to help Shinji?"

The purple-haired teen looked at her and responded, "Yes, Aya. It's more than just wanting to help him. It's as some would say when someone saves your life. I owe him a life debt. This mana belonging to his family that he's trying to inherit…I want to help him in any way that I can to see him fulfill that goal."

"But…just being with your family someplace safe from Mikage and supporting him in spirit would be just as helpful for Shinji. He made us promise to be careful in helping him."

"Because he doesn't want any of you to suffer any more than you've already suffered. Selfish…and selfless…but more selfless than selfish. Would any of us be any different from him?"

-x-

Sleep was elusive to Shinji that night, even if he took a sleeping pill hours. He kept waking up every other hour. It was always a feeling he had that something would happen if his father were loose and killing more people because of him. It made him uneasy.

"You really need to sleep, Shinji," he heard his deceased counterpart say to him, seeing him floating by the bathroom door. "He's still confined in a holding cell elsewhere in the building, a large distance away from you and that cheaply-made mana he doesn't want."

"Do you honestly believe that he'll be confined completely by Kagami and his security measures?"

"Is that a trick question?"

"No, it's a simple question."

The dead Shinji sighed and responded, "No, I don't. But you put your health at risk by worrying about whether or not he's confined or loose. If we're to ever face him again, you need to be ready, and that means a well-rested body is a strong body."

The living incarnation sighed and laid back down on the pillow.

"I'll be keeping watch," his dead self informed him, "just in case something does happen. That way, you'll be prepared to respond."

"Thank you. Last question, though."

"I already know what you're going to ask…and my answer is 'no'. You're not responsible for what happened earlier. The guilt belongs only to your father."

"How can you be so sure of that?"

"Because…in the end…we're only responsible for our own decisions. We can't shoulder the problems of those that make their own choices and respond to the consequences that we can react to differently. A man chooses to go left on a fork on the road, he can't for a woman to go with him when she decides to go right. A cop decides to shoot a serial, they can't decide if the shot they take will either stun or kill the killer. I commit suicide, and I can't take back the pain I inflicted on my loved ones. You choose to help others in ways I couldn't even imagine doing…and I support your decisions, no matter what happens. In the end, the only things we can admit responsibility for…is our own choices. And your father made his choices. He chose to kill those men, he chose to come after you in favor of the Ikari family's hagoromo instead of the fake one the Mikage scientists made…and he chose not to back off. Any blood that is spilt because of his actions…is on his hands, not yours, not Frenzia's, not nobody's. He is the only one responsible."

-x-

Gendo wasn't about to take this bring imprisoned any further and being ignored by the guard. He got up and raised his right hand up.

"Sit back down, sir!" The guard shouted at him, raising his gun armed with tranquilizer darts at him.

"I'm afraid I'm not going to follow that order," Gendo responded, and generated the AT-Field of Adam to defend himself against the guard's weapon.

-x-

"…Oh, no," went Alec, running through the data on the strange organism embedded in the man's hand, discovering something terrible. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That thing and that man… They're a time bomb just waiting to go off."

BOOM! Something loud occurred and the building shook as a consequence.

"Oh, no," Alec gasped again.

-x-

"What was that?" Aki gasped, waking up after hearing what sounded like explosion coming from afar.

It seemed as though the entire hotel heard the noise and was reacting in confusion.

"…Something has caused pandemonium for the whole building," said Anzu to them as they gathered in one of their assigned suites. "Probably the entire city. I looked out the window, and saw people out on the streets."

Yui and Asuka looked at each other and had the same thought running through their minds; they both feared for Shinji's safety at Mikage International.

Ring-ring-ring! Asuka's phone rang, and she answered it.

"Hello, this is Asuka speaking," she spoke.

"I'm glad I reached you, sis," she heard the voice of her foster sister on the other end.

"Rei? Did you hear an explosion, too?"

"Yeah, but you should hear the next sound that comes soon. It should be…very calming."

"You're with GeSANG in Okinawa, Rei. You're miles and miles away from where I am. How do you expect anyone here to hear anything over there?"

"You'll know…in half an hour. Give that other Shinji my best for me when you see him."

Then Rei hung up on Asuka, confusing the redhead with her last choice of words to say.

 _What?_ She thought. _Rei, what are you up to?_

-x-

"Anything new with the mirror, Rei?" Misato asked the albino as she and Asuka returned to the room to resume their monitoring of Shinji in the other universe.

"The mirror has shown me nothing, Major Katsuragi," Rei answered her, handing over the mirror to her. "After you and Pilot Soryu left, it ceased showing anything of Ikari-Kun or your doppelgängers."

Misato held up the mirror, but it didn't show her anything, either.

"Asuka," she said the Second Child's name and gave her the mirror, but all the redhead saw was her own reflection. "What do you see?"

"Just myself," she answered her. "It's not showing anything over there."

"Then…we don't know if he's okay. We don't know if he's alive or dead."

"Ikari-Kun is still alive," Rei expressed, surprising them to hear her say that. "Ikari-Kun has people over there that haven't given up on him…and his deceased counterpart and the celestial matriarch of the Ikari family have not abandoned him."

"How can you be so sure?" Asuka asked her.

Rei raised her right hand…and pressed it against her chest.

"I know it in here," she answered, referring to her heart.

Misato felt the same way, pressing her right hand against her chest…and had an idea.

"Maybe we all need to hold the mirror this time," she suggested. "Shinji heard us when we held it. Maybe it'll happen again."

Holding the mirror out in front of herself, Misato waited for the two girls to hold onto it with her.

Rei raised her left hand and took hold of it on her left side.

"Asuka," Misato urged the redhead to join them. "This might not work without your help."

Asuka, even after confiding in the purple-haired woman about her nightmare in which she saw Shinji kill her after she said something to him, something that was unknown to herself on whether or not it she that pushed him to kill her or if he misinterpreted whatever it was he heard her say, sighed and grabbed onto the mirror. Whatever it was she might've said to him in her dream would have to wait until later.

The mirror acted up, its glass rippling…and showing Shinji in a hallway with a woman; the woman was leading him somewhere.

" _With the structural integrity of the building compromised, we have to move you and the hagoromo to a secondary location where you'll be safe,"_ the woman told him.

" _That man got loose, didn't he?"_ They heard Shinji ask her.

" _We're not sure. We just think he caused an explosion. It's got the entire city in an uproar."_

She stopped them at a corner in the hall and turned to grasp Shinji on his shoulders…when Shinji suddenly became limp and his eyes flared blue.

" _Aah!"_ He gasped, falling to the floor

-x-

He wasn't sure how Gladys triggered it, but Shinji was caught in another possible future by his Future Link ability provided by the Rage-filled Anchor. He was seeing Kagami, standing in a large room where a hagoromo similar to the one Frenzia showed him that was its true form, unbound by a possessor, and the one belonging to Ceres that enabled her to depart from this world once she spared Toya's life, and in the room with him was his father…whose right arm now resembled the arm from his previous glimpse into the future where he saw Asuka die.

" _You can't have the hagoromo, sir,"_ Kagami told Gendo, raising a gun in his possession.

" _Unless it belongs to the Ikari family,"_ Gendo responded, sounding completely inhuman and beyond any hope of understanding, _"that thing has no value to me…and you're wasting my time."_

Then, like something out of a horror film, Gendo dashed toward Kagami…and ripped him in half with his right hand, cutting his life short in an instant.

"No!" Shinji gasped, returning to the present, seeing Gladys looking down at him. "He's…he's going to die unless we do something."

"What?" Gladys asked him, helping him up.

"Kagami Mikage… He's going to die in this building. Where is the hagoromo being kept? That's where he's going to die. We have to stop him."

-x-

While the research files and equipment were being relocated out of the building, Kagami ran to the secured room where the hagoromo was held. Typing in his password on a console to access the room, he was put at ease to see that it was still where it was developing.

As he went to move it, however, the door on the opposite side of the room was dented inwards, being forced open by something. A large, inhuman right hand burst through the door and was then ripped away, allowing whatever it was to enter.

At first, Kagami thought it was Shinji, but then saw it was the man from earlier, whose genetics were maimed by the organism in his arm.

Gendo, surviving an explosion he believed was triggered by Adam, had gone through a sort of mutation as his right hand expanded in size and became more muscly and covered with exaggerated veins. The fingers became like razor-edged talons, and his eyes were the darkest ever manifested in a human being in all of existence.

"Where…where…where is the boy?" He asked Kagami; his voice was garbled and harsher than he had been previously.

-x-

Shinji ran as fast as he could as Gladys led him to where the artificial hagoromo was being held. He had to hurry while there was still time to change Kagami's fate. Even if he didn't trust Kagami, even if he had no intention of letting him walk away from any of this insanity that started with Ceres, he didn't want his deranged father to kill any more people. And somehow…he only had less than eight minutes to save the man from Gendo…or Gendo would have another man's blood on his hands that he could care less about.

-x-

As the GeSANG music crew prepared to kick off their newest song, Shuro looked at Rei by the curtains of the stage and asked, "Have you thought of the name of the song, Ms. Ayanami?"

"I have," the blue-eyed blunette answered her, "and I'm calling it _Angel Punishment_."

" _Angel Punishment_ , huh? I guess that works. Let's hope your foster sister and her dead boyfriend's alternate can hear the lyrics."

"I have every hope that they will hear them, along with everyone else, too."

And ten seconds later, Shuro began what was possibly the last song she would ever sing.

To be continued…

A/N: I don't know how long it'll be until I can post the next chapter, but it'll probably be before this year ends if I can get other things done. What do you think so far? And should the next chapter be of the aftermath of the Ceres-Shinji's suicide to keep Ceres-Asuka from getting killed by him or just another work of the present where Eva-Shinji has to deal with Eva-Gendo?


	21. Heartache Repercussions

Creation began on 11-24-17

Creation ended on 11-29-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Heartache Repercussions

A/N: We all know that Shinji and Asuka of the Ceres universe were a couple separated by a suicide choice on the former's part to keep from harming the latter lover, but we never got to see how they, that is Asuka, Yui and Anzu, the three women that had anything to do with him, react and try to cope with the loss…until now.

Laying in her futon, the day after the love of her life took his own life to keep from harming her after hitting her without ever truly wanting to or without even the slightest of intentions, Asuka Soryu-Ayanami couldn't escape the memory of her lover burning himself to ashes in front of her.

" _I'm sorry, Asuka,"_ Shinji had told her as blue fire surrounded his body, his face wracked by guilt over hurting her against his will. _"Forgive me."_

He didn't scream, but she saw his tears as his mother came into her son's room and witnessed the departure of the boy. The fact that he had did himself in only reminded both women that he had been condemned to Hell as a consequence.

 _Shinji,_ she thought as she cried again. _You didn't have to kill yourself. What you did to me, I can forgive all of that because you never meant any of it. I can forgive all your bad actions because you were never at fault for any of them._

"Asuka," she heard her guardian, Mine Ayanami, outside her room, "are you okay?"

"I'm okay, Mine," she lied to her.

"Did something happen yesterday? You weren't at school."

"It's nothing."

-x-

First her father dies in prison because of her poor decisions, and now her son kills himself because of his bad heritage…and her negligence of him. Yui had caused both of their deaths because of her and her carelessness. The sight of her son setting himself ablaze had just started to sink into her conscious and how much his death was on her and her alone.

 _I killed him,_ she thought, sitting at her bedroom desk, crying that night. _I killed them both. It's all my fault. I've finally reaped what I've sown._

" _Miss Ikari,"_ went Asuka, covering herself in Shinji's sheets. _"I… Shinji and I were just… He just…"_

The girl was just too much in shock over what just happened in front of them. And Yui couldn't blame her for being unable to clarify what had happened. What was more was that Yui had seen enough in her son's room to tell her that when she denied Shinji her love, he went and searched for love elsewhere and ended up in bed with a girl that she wanted to disbelieve that they were involved. Of course, she couldn't blame anyone but herself for not seeing the signs.

"Yui," went Anzu to her as she stood outside her daughter's room. "Yui, we need to talk about what happened yesterday."

"I killed him," Yui told her.

"You didn't set him on fire. He did what he thought he had to in order to keep from hurting Asuka."

"You were right. I pushed him away and I did nothing to remedy the situation I started properly."

"It was either that or he'd have her possible death on his conscience. He didn't want that for her. He didn't want for any of us, whether we were with him or not."

"How can you be so calm about this?"

"Because I can't afford to have a breakdown at my age…and you can't afford to throw your life away."

Yui looked at her mother and sighed.

"I've already, more or less, thrown my life away, Mother," she told her.

-x-

The very next day was a trying one for Asuka in school. It felt strange to be back there without Shinji; none of the students or teachers even knew that her boyfriend was gone…and she wasn't sure if she should tell them.

"…And it would seem that Mr. Ikari is absent again today," said the female teacher as she checked attendance. "Hmm? Well, this note explains his absence to a degree. What kind of parent goes and decides to take a leave of absence to go travel and take their son with them?"

 _What?_ Asuka wondered; why would the school be informed that Shinji was elsewhere with his mother when that was a falsehood? _But Shinji's not traveling with anyone. At least not in the traditional sense._

-x-

She went to the house, wanting to get to the bottom of the matter as soon as possible. If Asuka was right about what she was left to simply assume, then the only ones that knew that Shinji was dead…were herself, Yui and Anzu…and the adult women in her lover's life didn't divulge the truth to anyone else.

Knock-knock-knock! She knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer.

The door opened and she was greeted by Anzu.

"Asuka," she expressed.

"Anzu," she responded. "I was at school today, and I heard… Why did you two lie? I saw him die. I couldn't tell anyone about it. Why?"

Anzu let her into the house and set up a pot of tea.

"Yui is just as shaken up by his death as we both are," she explained to her, "but it hasn't begun to sink in that what happened wasn't her fault. She blames herself for what he did to keep from hurting you."

Asuka raised her left hand to her chest, still feeling the lingering pain where Shinji, possessed by his inexplainable negativity that he had no control over, had hit her during their throes of tender lovemaking. She might've been able to recover with only a slight bruise later on, but the pain of his death would be forever.

"Did she really leave to go travel?" She asked Anzu, wanting to know where Yui was.

"No," she answered her. "I just had to tell the school something to convince them that Shinji wasn't going to be around for a while. She's here, but she's shut herself up in his room. This is to help her with her grief."

"How long does it take to sink in?"

"It depends on the person affected by loss. Denial, anger, etc. Which stage of the grief are you in?"

"I guess I… I can't deny that I watched him die…and I can't be angry with him for doing this to us. I know he didn't want to do it…but after he did what he did to me without wanting to, he just felt he had no choice. He said he saw that he was going to kill me…and just wanted to prevent that."

"Men who feel true love will always die to protect their loved ones, no matter what the personal cost to themselves. If he was willing to kill himself to keep from killing you after harming you…then his feelings for you were pure."

"But I would've accepted the risk of him killing me…if it meant being with him."

"I believe you. Truly, I do."

"But he couldn't have my possible death on his conscience. He didn't want to live with knowing that he'd killed me. I can't call the man I love a coward for putting my life first…but I can't stop missing him so much."

Anzu sympathized with Asuka; the grandmother loved her grandchild and was suffering from the loss just as much as the grandchild's lover.

"Can I ask a personal question?" She asked the redhead.

"Shoot," Asuka responded.

"If he had somehow merely burnt himself into a medically-induced coma instead of suicide and needed to be hospitalized as a result…would you have visited him?"

Asuka looked at her and answered, "I would've visited him until he got better or worse. I loved him like the old saying 'forever and ever'…and I still love him. There's no one else that can fill the hole in my heart that he occupied."

-x-

Yui looked at the picture of Shinji and Asuka from when they were a year younger, seeing how the boy seemed so happy with the redhead…and then looked at the scorched spot on the floor where nothing remained of the boy. She wept. Her memories of forcing him to take medication he never needed, ignoring him on the days and night that she should've did what her role in his life requested of her to do, and then that day of coming home and seeing him immolating himself until not even ashes were salvageable.

 _I had never been much of a believer in the gods,_ she thought, sitting on Shinji's bed, _but if there's anyone out there listening to this failure of a mother, I only have this request. Please_ _…_ _please_ _…_ _have mercy on my son's soul. Please, don't let him suffer on the other side of life. What he did was reprehensible, but he did so out of love for a young girl that cared for him more than I ever could've. He doesn't deserve any retribution._

-x-

Over a week had gone by and Asuka was in the school nurse's office after collapsing in class. The nurse had informed her that the cause of her collapse was her monthly visitor and that some rest would make her feel better (as well as her birth control pills), but Asuka felt like this discovery was like another nail in Shinji's nonexistent coffin or another reminder that there were no remains of him anything on this plane of existence.

 _Why?_ She wondered as she cried quietly on the medical bed. _Why?_

While some young girls would view their period as just another mark on their path to womanhood, Asuka felt only more heartache. In truth, she dreaded it coming back after Shinji died. She had been hoping that her period wouldn't come, that she had gotten pregnant by Shinji; she didn't care about any stigma she might've been dealt as a consequence, so long as she had a part of Shinji with her, not just her memories of him.

"Asuka?" Her foster sister, Rei, showed up and approached the medical bed she was on. "Are you alright, Asuka?"

"I'm fine," she lied, but then had to own up to her feelings about part of her lie. "I just miss Shinji."

-x-

 _One Year Later_

Asuka, after having a whole year to silently grieve over her lover's death, was now heading over to the Ikari house to speak with Yui and Anzu on this anniversary day they lost the young man in their lives as she rode her bike. A whole year of grieving, crying silently in the night, of remembering only the best of moments spent with a young man that had captured her heart. She was hoping that after so many months, Yui would finally speak with her and they could cross that bridge that she had suspected the woman held back from due to being so intimate with her son.

Then, either an act of fate or because she felt the need to turn her head right as she rode down the curved street on her way to the Ikari house, she saw a young man that, against all aspects of life, against all astronomical odds, bore an uncanny resemblance to Shinji Ikari! He was accompanied by an older girl, two older men and a small woman with a weird face. For a brief instant, their glances crossed, as if reading each other's expressions…and both were of some sort of surprise, as though they had seen a ghost or something from their past. And then…time resumed for them as Asuka's bike sped away, the girl turning her gaze back onto the road in front of her.

 _He looked so much like him,_ she thought, trying to process what she saw. _Probably my heart playing tricks on my perception again. Just because someone looks similar to someone you know and love doesn't mean they've come back from the dead. That's just wishful thinking._

But even if it was just wishful thinking and not an act of fate, she felt a little better seeing someone that looked a little like Shinji. It was…a pleasant feeling of elation.

To be continued…

A/N: Man, I'll say that this was somewhat difficult to write in words. You got the C-Asuka devastated by C-Shinji's death, C-Yui blaming herself for her son's suicide because she had neglected him, and Anzu grieving at a calm rate over the loss while trying to keep her daughter from crossing another line. In however way you choose to perceive it, all three women in C-Shinji's life are hurting over his death and the arrival of E-Shinji and his connection to C-Shinji's disembodied soul seems like a return from the dead, even if one of them is from another universe.


	22. Melody and Discord, Pain and Death

Creation began on 06-30-17

Creation ended on 01-24-18

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Melody and Discord, Pain and Death

The people were crazy on the streets as Asuka, Yui and the others were heading to Mikage International to get Shinji. Some wanted to drive their cars, but the ones in front or behind them were vacant. Others felt like breaking into electronic stores for whatever they could take for the sake of taking it. If this was how an unknown number of factors they were left in the dark on affected them, then simply knowing what was going on would likely cause them to panic in greater excess.

 _Shinji, I hope you're doing better than we are right now,_ thought Asuka.

Suddenly, there was a strange air of silence around them…and everyone was calm, ceasing in their previous actions of panic.

"Does anyone here…someone singing?" Anzu asked.

"It sounds like… Shuro?" Aya questioned.

"Shuro? From GeSANG?" Asuka spoke, and realized that she was right; she and Rei had heard Shuro's voice many times, the redhead should've known the sound of her by heart. "But…it's not like I'm hearing her in my ears. It's like…I'm hearing her in my head."

The lyrics felt like they dealt with an angel or celestial being that did something wrong to someone else…and was punished for their wrongdoing by others. Those that heard the song wondered why any celestial being would commit such a wrong to warrant such punishment.

"An evil angel," said Yui. "Cruel, unyielding, uncaring."

"An angel isn't meant to be any of these," added Misato.

-x-

"…I'm afraid that the boy is being relocated to a safer location because of you," Kagami told Gendo. "You're a danger to what I hope to achieve through him."

"And you're a fool if you think you can stand in my way of getting what I want from him," Gendo retorted, looking at the hagoromo held in its containment sphere.

"Stay away from that," Kagami warned him, taking out his pistol and aiming at Gendo. "You can't have the hagoromo, sir."

Gendo looked at it, momentarily mesmerized, but then turned back at Kagami and expressed, "Unless it belongs to the Ikari family, that thing has no value to me…and you're wasting my time."

This surprised Kagami; all Shinji had said was that he was after the hagoromo, but never about which one he was after, as there were more than one type. If this man only desired the one associated with the Ikari family, then it was probably the reason Shinji was so unusual for being the only male with celestial abilities.

"Mister Mikage!" They both heard Shinji's voice as the boy ran into the room. "Get away from him!"

But Gendo dashed towards Kagami, leaving Shinji with less than a moment to prevent the future he saw from happening.

"No!" He shouted, running towards Kagami; he might've disliked the guy for his morals and agenda, but not even he deserved to die at the hands of his disgraceful father. _I can't let it happen!_

Time seemed to slow down between the three men…and all Gladys could see was the intensity of the scene in front of her.

Gendo's mutated arm aiming for Kagami's chest, Kagami looking like a cross between fearful and surprised, and Shinji looking desperate to save the latter from the former.

PIERCE! Gendo's arm had penetrated flesh.

"Gah!" He gasped, seeing Kagami on the floor, looking unharmed. "You petulant brat!"

Shinji, having managed to knock Kagami aside, felt Gendo plow his claw right through his abdomen. He never thought it would hurt so much that he couldn't express his pain verbally. But as he looked at his father, he chuckled at what this could mean for either of them. If his new wound proved to be fatal and severe, then he would die, unable to inherit Frenzia's hagoromo…and that meant Gendo couldn't get it, no matter what he did because he killed the last, known male descendant of the celestial matriarch of the Ikari family. An eternal stalemate.

"You know what the worst part of this is?" He told them, never taking his eyes off his father. "I didn't plan on getting killed by anyone. I just…wanted to stop you from killing him."

Shinji then coughed up a wad of blood onto the floor as his head fell back.

"Graurgh!" Gendo snarled as he swung his arm to the left, throwing Shinji aside onto the floor. _No! He was the only one that could gain the hagoromo!_

Swat! He felt something hit him on the left shoulder, followed by several more elsewhere, and looked at where a woman stood, a gun in her hand.

Gladys, unable to stop Shinji from throwing his life on the line to protect her employer, shot several tranquilizer darts at him.

Gendo, feeling only slightly woozy, staggered towards Gladys with the intent to harm her.

"Hey!" He heard Shinji's voice, and turned to face him, seeing that he looked unharmed; there was no injury on him, not even the impalement. "Look down before you look up!"

Punch! Shinji, with every ounce of persistence that he could muster from his own heart, punched his father as hard as he could under his jaw, sending him flying backwards onto the floor, out cold.

"Aaurgh!" Shinji groaned, holding his left wrist; he didn't expect it to hurt so much when he punched his father. "Are you alright, Mr. Mikage?"

As he got up, Kagami responded, "I am fine. How did you do that? I saw him impale you."

"I just tried something new, altering perceptions," he explained. "I made him see only what I wanted him to see, based on the situation. Not my best move, but it kept him from doing you in."

"Illusion casting. None of the previous C-Genomes had performed such an ability."

"Urgh!" They turned to Gendo, who was struggling to get up.

"Oh, Hell, no," Shinji uttered as he approached him.

Punch! He punched his father again…and again…and again.

"Stop, Shinji!" Gladys told him, pulling him off Gendo, who was clearly pummeled. "The tranquilizers are settling in! He's not going to be waking up for hours."

But he looked at her and said, which seemed to surprise even him, "You…don't believe that."

Then, the two adults quickly took Shinji and the artificial hagoromo and vacated the room.

Two minutes later, Gendo came to, got up and went after them.

-x-

Mikage International's main building looked stable on the outside, but was structurally unstable internally. Whatever happened earlier had left much of the support structures and walls barely hanging on and keeping the building whole.

"I don't know what is worse right now," said Anzu to them as they wandered through the halls and stairways, "that this building's ready to give…or that people are still inside and trying to get out."

"Just think positive, Mrs. Ikari," went Yuuhi to the elder woman as they walked around a hole in the floor. "As long as the building is standing, it'll take time for the whole place to come down."

"Come on, Shinji, where are you?" Asuka wondered aloud. "Give us some degree of a sign that you're alive somewhere in the building."

-x-

 _"Come on, Shinji, give us a degree of a sign that you're alive,"_ Shinji felt the voice of the red-eyed Asuka in him as he was escorted by Kagami and Gladys to the roof of the building where a helicopter was waiting.

Ring! A strange sound came and the world around him seemed to slow down.

But Shinji felt like he was unaffected by what was going on around him. He moved away from Gladys…and she slowly moved his way, but it was taking her a long time just to raise her left arm up and approach him.

"Now, this is something new," said his deceased counterpart as he manifested beside him. "Were you thinking of this?"

"No," he answered. "Probably something spontaneous right now. I don't understand what it's called, but we should probably make the most of it while it's still around."

"Call it bullet time, for lack of a better term."

The living Shinji sighed and bowed his head to Gladys apologetically.

"Forgive my choice right now, but I can't leave just yet," he told her and Kagami. "The building hasn't come down yet…and maybe I can keep it from doing so."

He then ran off.

-x-

Gendo snarled as he felt his feet bulk up in muscle mass, causing his pants to tear. The First Angel was mutating him much more progressively than previously anticipated, now invading the rest of his body instead of just his arm.

"Where are you, Third Child?!" He shouted, every step he took shook the building ever more. "You can run, but you can't hide from me! I will find you and rip you to pieces!"

His left arm quickly mutated into what his right arm had turned into. Veiny extensions protruded under his neck and on his forehead.

"I'll tear this whole damn city apart if it becomes necessary!"

-x-

"…That man's a monster," went Asuka, unable to take her eyes off the sight of Gendo in the mirror. "He's literally turning into a monster."

"And all for a family heirloom he has no rights to," added Misato as the mirror rippled to re-show Shinji, running down a hall, past several people who were moving rather slowly.

"Why are they moving so slow?" Rei questioned.

"Time manipulation, maybe," Asuka suggested; she had seen _The Matrix_ enough times to see a comparison to what Shinji was doing.

-x-

"This will take too long to find them in a building as unstable as this one," the deceased Shinji informed his live counterpart as he ran around the people in the halls, "even if time is moving slow."

"I know I heard Asuka's voice before this happened, so she has to be in the building."

"I believe you. There' s no doubt in the heart or soul."

"Asuka!"

A silence crept for a few seconds…until…

"Shinji!" They both heard Asuka's voice call back…and sounding close by.

The living Shinji ran down the hallway and down another flight of stairs to the next floor. There were several more people moving slowly through the halls, indicating that he was still moving faster than they were.

Whoosh! Shinji felt the bad presence of his father nearby, augmented by his burning hatred that threatened to consume all like an inferno.

"…You think you can hide from me, you useless spare?!" He heard his voice now, sounding inhuman and filled to the brink with malice. "I will take the hagoromo from your withering corpse! I'll find you! I'll search the ends of this world! I'll hunt you down!"

 _He's near,_ his dead counterpart informed him.

"Aaah!" They recognized Asuka's panicked reactions.

"Come here!" Gendo's voice demanded.

"Run!" They heard Yui's voice.

 _Oh, no!_ Both incarnations of Shinji panicked, and the live one ran faster until he came into a hall where the sight of statues looking just Asuka, Aya, Misato and the others were being pursued by the grotesque form of Gendo, locked in time.

Smack! Shinji got in between his father and the red-eyed Asuka and hit him in the face, sending him slamming into a wall on his right.

-x-

Slam! Gendo felt some sort of force knock him away from the red-eyed version of the Second Child and into a wall.

"What the…" Asuka gasped.

"Run!" They all heard Shinji's voice. "Just go!"

Gendo got back up and tried to approach this world's alternate of Yui, only to be hit by an unseen force for the second time, knocked onto his back on the ground. Looking up, he saw the Third Child and his dead counterpart looking down at him.

"Stay away from them," they both told him.

But Gendo wasn't going to listen to either child and got back up, only for them to vanish.

"Where are you?!" He yelled out.

"Right here," Shinji answered behind him, shoving him against another wall.

"Rrrraurgh!" He swung his right hand at him, but felt nothing but air.

Asuka and the others ran back the other way and were a whole other floor between Gendo and brutal harm. There was no other way to describe the man that fathered Shinji beyond that of a demonic creature spliced with a man with an attitude problem. No, to the redhead, there was something else to add to the man: Gendo was, beyond any rational thought right now, maniacal, writhed in madness. He was a frightening monster that could only become more so than now in her mind as time progressed.

But Shinji… Somehow, Shinji had become like a ghost or something, able to move very quickly and be barely seen by anyone.

"You are clearly hard at hearing," they heard Shinji's voice as it sounded like he was punching his father with every fiber of his fists. "You're not an Ikari by blood! You can't get what isn't yours to try and possess! Even when there is one such relic that has no ties to anyone, you choose to pursue what won't be yours to have! Ever! So long as I don't have the hagoromo, it'll always be a deadlock between any that want it for selfish or vindictive reasons and myself or any other guy in my generation. And I'll tell you something that'll likely make you care even less for me, but I need you to hear it, anyway. I wouldn't use whatever power Frenzia's hagoromo would afford me. Not if I were unable to help the people that helped me here or the people back there so they could live out the rest of their lives without the need of the Evas or in fear of the Angels. I'd just let it stay hidden and pray that it never harms anyone. The less it's sought after or even exploited, the less danger it places people in by other people that want it."

"Which makes you all the more unfit to have it."

"Oh, on the contrary, you depraved man," went Frenzia as she manifested beside the living and deceased incarnations of Shinji, "it makes him all the more deserving of it. What would you do with it if you had it? How would you affect the world around you with such an heirloom?"

"I certainly wouldn't waste it on foolish goals or hide it away like he would."

"Except that you're wasting your time and your very life, reaching for the unreachable."

"Because he's keeping it from those that deserve it more!"

"Wrong. He doesn't even have it yet. Until he's able to obtain it, until he's passed his greatest trial, it's safely hidden away, beyond even his reach. A mystery wrapped in riddles and cloaked in conundrums, lost in a series of mazes that can't be navigated through without it."

"I don't understand why you would put so much of your faith in such a weak-willed boy."

Now Frenzia felt immensely disrespected by this disgraceful mortal that fathered one of her descendants from another universe.

"He is willing to be selfless," she told him. "He is willing to trust people he didn't know here and had no reason to trust, and his heart, however maimed, however harmed by the trauma of his own past, by the very people that should've been more than just a bunch of strangers with some degree of passion that led to his own existence, hasn't a shred of the hatred that you have. And not just because he is somehow able to house and channel the soul of my latest descendant from this world, something that may only be because of his connection to the Rage-filled Anchor, their…unfortunate cross to bear like it had been for those that came before them."

"That's pathetic."

"Maybe to you, but to me, it's nowhere near as pathetic as the inhuman sight in front of me. I fear only the worst of fates that will befall you. A fate that is far worse than the fate of death."

"Not if you hand over what is rightfully mine."

"But it's not yours…and never will be. You don't deserve it, and you can't earn it. It wouldn't answer to you, even if you did have it."

"Your faith in a complete failure is staggering."

"No. My faith in my descendants, all of my descendants, living, deceased and/or displaced…is something that will be decided by a higher power that is beyond us all."

-x-

The instant they were far away, Asuka felt a feeling of woe for Shinji. Not the Shinji she watched burn to ashes to keep from harming her, but the Shinji that allowed for her to see him again one last time to say goodbye. She was afraid for him, of what this monster that was his father might do to him if he didn't get his way. Although he had told her to get away, her heart was telling her something different; just like with how it told her to never let go of the man she would love until the end of her own existence, physical and spiritual, it was telling her not to let go of this young man because she would have regretted losing him all over again.

 _I'm sorry, Shinji,_ she thought, and ran back the other way, back to where Shinji was.

"Asuka!" Yui gasped. "Asuka, come back!"

She ran back up the stairs, down the hall, desperate to see him again, wanting to see him again.

" _Asuka, I heard from the school that you collapsed in one of your classes earlier today,"_ Mine Ayanami had informed the previous year, over a week after her Shinji had taken his own life. _"Are you alright now?"_

" _I'll be alright,"_ she told her, needing to be helped a little by Rei up the stairs to her room. _"Just my period. Bad cramps."_

She wasn't sure why she was thinking of that day now; she had told Yui of her regret after finding out about it. Maybe it was her subconscious reminder that, despite everything that hadn't happened over what had happened, she felt the need to chase after small fantasies that might as well have been dreams.

"…Damn you, boy!" She heard his father yell, sounding even more inhuman. "I will have what should be mine! Do you hear me?!"

She turned a corner and saw Shinji trying to choke his old man from behind, getting clawed at on his back by those monstrous claws.

"Aaaaurgh! Aaaurgh!" Shinji yelled, but refused to release him from his grip. "If you think I'm going to step aside and watch you hurt any more people here for something you will never possess, people that my heart goes out to, then you're in for a world of hurt, Father! If I had the choice, I'd choose to remain here over returning to Tokyo-3 and NERV!"

"You'd just be running away again!"

"Says you!"

Gendo then jumped up and smashed into the ceiling before coming back down.

Shinji, now covered in dust and minute debris, was definitely feeling pain from his father's attempt to hurt him and throw him off, but he refused to relent. He saw his father's left ear…and bit into it!

"Gaaurgh!" Gendo howled in pain, feeling his son's teeth break the skin and send nerve-wrenching sensations to his brain. "You goddamn useless pilot!"

"Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!" Shinji grunted, biting down harder on his father's ear. "MMM!"

He pulled away, sending a streak of blood into the air that splattered against a broken wall.

"URGH!" Gendo howled as he jumped up again into the ceiling, breaking through the other floors.

SMASH! He broke through the remaining floors and crash-landed onto the roof, on his back.

"OH!" Shinji groaned, spitting out the piece of his father's ear that he bit off, unintentionally releasing him from his hold.

Gendo pulled himself away and got back up, now sporting pointed ears where his regulars were, with the left ear being smaller because it was maimed.

"You insolent fool!" He called Shinji, and kicked him hard in his abdomen.

"Aaaurgh!" Shinji gasped, shuddering. "Is that all you got?"

Asuka made it up to the rooftop where they were and saw Gendo kicking his son like a deranged man, trying to put him down. She looked over at the helicopter where Kagami and Gladys were…and was probably going to be out of bounds for even thinking what she was thinking of doing.

"If either one of you has a gun, I suggest you use it and shoot him!" She yelled at the pair.

Gladys took out her gun and fired a tranquilizer dart at Gendo's back, but he still continued to kick Shinji, who blocked most of each blow.

"Spare no dart! Empty the clip!" He yelled at Gladys. "Empty the clip!"

Gladys fired again and again until her gun was empty, shooting fourteen darts at Gendo's back before she had to reload.

Gendo turned to face her, barely flinching at the fact that fourteen darts stuck out his back.

"You are such a disappointment…"

Whack! His sentence was cut off by being hit on the head with a piece of debris, causing him to turn to face the red-eyed Second Child, who held another piece of debris in her hands.

"You little bitch!" He called her.

SMACK! Shinji got up and punch his father in his jaw, sending him flying backwards onto the ground, causing the darts on his back to lodge themselves further into his skin.

"You're the little bitch, you little bitch!" He told him, looking at his arm where the creature embedded in the palm resided. "And you're sick!"

He stepped on the wrist and picked up a small fragment of the roof that resembled a knife and jammed it into the flesh.

"Urgh! Gaaurgh! Stop!" Gendo yelled, clawing at shinji's back with his other hand, sending streaks of blood into the air.

"Aaaurgh!" Shinji grunted, feeling those talons cut deep into his back flesh.

Asuka ran over to them and grabbed Gendo's arm, trying to hold it away from Shinji.

"Get off me!" He demanded.

"No!" She yelled back, gripping the grotesque limb. "I won't let you hurt Shinji! He's all we have!"

Shinji saw the glimpse of the future he'd seen when Asuka touched him that time at the Ikari house. The one where his father had impaled Asuka in her stomach and killed. It felt like it was coming closer to the edge of reality…but then it faded away, like a bad thought or dream that was being quickly forgotten before it could be remembered.

Chink! The creature embedded in Gendo's arm came out like a bad tooth being ripped out of a mouth ruined by too much candy, sent flying into the air.

"No!" Gendo yelled in anger as Adam began disintegrating into ash. "No!"

With the loss of Adam, he lost his only edge against anyone that stood between him and his objectives. Not only that, but he wouldn't be able to achieve Instrumentality, either. The forbidden union between Adam and Lilith would never be implemented. Mankind was now trapped in its evolutionary standstill.

"You petulant fool! Do you know what you have done?!"

Shinji and Asuka released him and the red-eyed redhead helped the injured boy as he staggered away.

"Yeah," Shinji uttered, feeling weakened by his injuries. "I made a choice to stop you…before you did something we'd have to live with for the rest of our lives."

Gendo tried to get up, but found that he couldn't. Maybe it was the tranquilizers he got shot up with or the loss of Adam. Either way, he was down until his body recovered. If it still could, that is.

"You…you robbed me of an opportunity to get what I lost," he told him. "I'll make you pay. I will make you pay."

But Shinji had lost consciousness before he had even threatened him, leaving only Asuka, Kagami and Gladys to hear him.

-x-

"It looks like Shinji beat him," Misato stated, seeing Shinji being held onto Asuka's red-eyed counterpart as he looked in serious need of medical attention as a result of his injuries sustained from his father.

"I don't think he should've tried to fight him," Asuka gave her opinion, looking at how her counterpart seemed comforted holding Shinji. "He could die from his injuries."

The mirror rippled a little as the three saw Shinji and the red-eyed Asuka being approached by Kagami and Gladys. When it ceased, they saw Misato's younger counterpart, Yui, Anzu, the Mikage twins and their friends standing in front of the two.

" _If you still want to come after Shinji, do it another time,"_ they heard Aya say to Kagami.

" _Take that man as a consolation prize, if it helps you,"_ Yui suggested, pointing to Gendo. _"I don't trust him around anyone without serious protection."_

Kagami seemed conflicted between possessing Shinji and allowing him to be with these people and get medical attention.

Seconds later, they heard a female voice singing. The lyrics were haunting-yet-beautiful. It felt like an angelic being reprimanded for actions committed or uncommitted long ago.

"… _And when we let go, we shed the weight of our wings… Our penance served… To let go…is to accept punishment…"_ They heard the lyrics.

" _This isn't over,"_ Kagami told them. _"He saved my life from this man. He's more valuable than even I had anticipated him to be."_

He and Gladys allowed them to take Shinji and vacate the building…while they took Gendo with them and took to the sky.

-x-

"…Ah, man, look at his back," said Yuuhi as Anzu removed Shinji's shirt. "How was his father able to…do this to him?"

During the calming commotion, they had returned to the hotel to treat Shinji's injuries and Yui had to wonder the same thing: How could any father…or any parent, for that matter…demonstrate such capacity for horrific abuse to their child?

"Unfitness," she expressed, wondering if she could stitch close his back injuries.

Shinji's left hand fidgeted, showing that he was still alive.

Asuka reached for and held it, calming the limb.

"Shinji?" She spoke, looking at his face.

"Owie…" He responded.

" _Owie, owie, owie…"_ Asuka, Yui and Anzu recalled their Shinji expressing his discomfort at falling down and hurting himself by accident.

"Do you think the hotel will care if we take their towels to stunt his blood loss until we get him to the hospital?" Misato asked, holding the ones she took from the bathroom.

"It's their maids' job to wash the towels and sheets," Aki told her.

-x-

Shinji felt as though he was in a different place from he usually ended up when he chose to engage in conversation with his other self and Frenzia. The environment was alien, but…oddly…familiar to him, like he had been here once before already. It was a beach with white sand instead of the brownish-orange he'd seen a few times, and the ocean water was reddish-orange, giving the scene an eerie, desolate feel to it.

"What…is this place?" He wondered, and then turned around to the sight of horrid.

Some sort of…giant, fossilized humanoid, sticking out of the ground, slanted, arms extended out on both sides of its body, practically headless. But some features he could still make out were the most haunting to his conscious. The arms, legs and torso all resembled those…of an Eva's.

"An Eva?" He questioned, and then noticed another one a good distance in the water. "What happened here? Was there…some sort of battle?"

-x-

The new location for the C-Genome research was reduced to a large ship that Mikage International possessed. While the hagoromo was safely secured in one of the lower levels, Kagami kept watch over the incapacitated Gendo, who seemed to be returning to his original state…and showing signs of deterioration in his muscles. The only benefit to his current state was the fact that the guy couldn't move or threaten the remaining personnel…and something Alec wanted to disclose to Kagami after retesting the DNA.

"I've finally gotten the new results…and here's something that we didn't get from the earlier test," Alec revealed, showing Kagami the paper with the DNA results. "It would seem that it wasn't just a conflict of interest going on between them."

Kagami looked at the comparisons between the two strands of DNA and then at Gendo in the private room strapped to the bed.

 _There's clearly no affection from this man towards the boy,_ he accepted, but suspected that this man would kill Shinji if given the first chance he got. _We may have to take bigger steps to ensure our goal._

-x-

While this hospital didn't have the same welcoming feeling as that of Magatama Memorial Hospital, the doctors were discreet and didn't ask them too many questions concerning their friend's injuries. This and because they heard the mysterious song that spoke of penance.

"How long has it been since they took him in for surgery?" Aya asked as they waited outside in the hall in front of the doors that led to the OR.

"Four hours," Misato answered. "Come on, Shinji. We want to see you again."

"Does this bring back any memories, Yui?" Anzu asked her daughter.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Mother," she responded, but, in truth, she knew exactly what she was talking about, just not wanting to view their current situation with a sense of mild humor or memories of a past pain. _Five hours of the hardest transition of my life._

Anzu had been referring to the end of her daughter's unplanned and unexpected pregnancy with Shinji, which ended in a five-hour-long labor.

"I mean this when I say it, and Shinji has many good reasons to not let his injuries get the best of him," went Q-Chan to them.

"Name one or two, please," suggested Asuka to her; she needed to know what the reasons were for Shinji to pull through.

"He has people waiting for him," she answered her, "and they're the kind of people he takes to a lot. Friends…family…happiness."

"Yeah," expressed Yuuhi. "What more reason could be necessary for anyone to pull through?"

The doors to the OR opened up and one of the doctors walked out.

 _Please,_ Asuka pled to whoever might've been listening to her, _don't take Shinji from us all over again._

The male doctor approached the group and expressed, "He's stable for now, but he lost a lot of blood. Is any of you a match for him?"

Only a handful of them were.

"He's AB-Negative," explained Yui. "I'm A-Negative."

This was bad. This meant Yui couldn't donate her blood to help.

"I'm O-Negative," went Asuka. "That's universal, right?"

"Same here," added Misato.

-x-

There seemed to be no trace of any sort of existence anywhere Shinji looked. Left, right, up, down, back and forth, it was all the same: The world was stripped bare and devoid of life. Nothing made any sense for the boy on what could have happened or who could have been responsible.

Buildings demolished, scorched land, no healthy leaves on any trees, and all visible sources of water were reddish-orange, just like…

"Oh, no," he gasped at the newest sight he came up to.

It was Misato's apartment building. Or rather, what was left of it. Half of it still standing, but the other half had been reduced to rubble.

"It's all gone," he realized.

"There's no coming back for anyone here," he suddenly heard a familiar voice behind. "Nobody wanted to come back after what was done to them…and he was broken beyond any measure of mending. It's my fault for breaking him further."

"Asuka?" He questioned, slowly turning to face her.

"Please, don't look at me," she told him. "You wouldn't recognize me, anyway. I'm not much to look at, anymore."

But he wanted to see her, to face her in conversation.

"What happened here, please," he at least wanted to know. "What happened?"

"Third Impact," she answered him. "The end of the world. But it wasn't the Angels that did this. It was people. People that wanted this…and they used us all. They used him."

"Who?"

He felt a hand touch his left shoulder, followed by another hand snaking around his waist as someone slowly pressed themselves against his back.

"They used you," she told him. "The pain you were afflicted, the emotional suffering you couldn't endure, the abandonment by everyone, you couldn't cope with any of it. You couldn't survive without any shred of kindness or acceptance. You were forced to cast out the world that was and replace it with this dead world that could've been mended…had people been better towards you. Had she been better towards you. Had I been better towards you."

A scent of blood and decay filled his nose, and he closed his eyes in an attempt to shut it all out. If this was true, then he'd been exploited and this was all his doing.

"None of this was on you, though," she explained. "You're blameless in all of this. Lines were crossed by those that thought they knew what would or could happen. It's beyond too late for any of us, but it's not too late for him to be saved, for you to end the suffering he's still experiencing out there."

"What do you mean? What…are you talking about?"

"One life shattered into many, each one a fractured piece of the same soul, lived through different experiences of what might have been, what could have been, what should have been. None of them the same, but each of them connected to each other beyond the veil of time and space, their lives all existing in the here and now, past, present and future. Two sides of the line, light and darkness, right and wrong, life and death. One side to survive, the other to end what's left. Nobody's sure what will happen, if anything ever does happen. What will you do? Will you stand by and wait, stand and fight for who and what matters to you…or seek to undo what is? Each of you has that choice."

He didn't know what to say to her. He was conflicted with what he knew so far: The aftermath of getting absorbed by the Twelfth Angel stranded him in another world that was vastly different from the one he knew, where Angels didn't exist, where Second Impact was nonexistent and coastal areas weren't submerged by the water generated melted ice caps of the Antarctic. It was also a world where there were certain people, mostly women, related to these beings of untold incomprehension and abilities, likely older than people, some even capable of possessing certain descendants, and he was the only known male descendant of a celestial being older and stronger than the one he knew as Ceres. At least a young man that was him in this world.

And his presence had changed many things and prevented situations from escalating before they could even begin. He helped to deviate the fates of several individuals, including the Mikage twins and saved the doppelgängers of Asuka and Misato. And he knew that if he had to do it all over again, he'd do it to save them in a heartbeat.

-x-

Asuka was the most freaked out by the sight of the girl holding Shinji as she spoke to him. It reminded her of other nightmares relating to her fears. The only thing keeping it from getting any creepier was that Shinji was told not to look at her. And she hoped that Shinji wouldn't try to look at her at all; personally, she didn't want anyone to see in such a monstrous state.

" _Is there a right or wrong choice?"_ They heard Shinji ask the Asuka behind him.

" _There are no right or wrong choices in situations like this,"_ she responded to his question. _"Only the ones you make of your own free will. Each of you makes the choice you feel is the one you should, without anyone else making it for you or trying to guilt trip you into doing things you don't want to do. But there's something I should say to you…even though you're not really the Shinji I once knew who's in a world of hurt that I ended up becoming the nail in his coffin to trap him in."_

She, Misato and Rei inched closer to the mirror and awaited the girl's next words. Whatever she was going to say might have been the answer to whatever it was that explained why things were as they were for them.

" _I am sorry, Shinji Ikari,"_ she told him. _"You were hurt, broken. Your mother left you at an early age…and then left you again with only words of falsehood hopes that meant nothing after I said what I said to you. I said 'how disgusting' to you…and you snapped. And you had every right to do so. I was disgusted by your pathetic behavior. What kind of fourteen-year-old cries after being caressed on his face after trying strangle someone that never truly says anything kind to them for the sake of being kind? I pushed you over the edge and turned you into a miserable person driven by a vengeful need to undo the last traces of his past, unafraid of the potential repercussions…since there's nobody, no police, no judges, absolutely no one left to accuse you or condemn you of any wrongdoing. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for my life-ending transgression towards you."_

Rei seemed somewhat bothered by what they found out about this dream-like phenomenon that was happening with Shinji. It felt like something so awful had happened…or would happen at a later time that would spell only disaster for everyone.

" _This is only me saying this to you, Asuka,"_ Shinji responded to her, _"so I don't know what the one you knew would say. I forgive you for your transgression."_

Her hands, the right one revealed to be decayed, allowing Shinji to see it, realizing that he was talking to someone who was dead.

" _How long have you been this way?"_ He asked her, still respecting her request for him to not look at her. _"I mean, how long have you…since you died?"_

" _Far too long,"_ she stated cryptically. _"Far too long that it feels like an eternity. Maybe it has been an eternity. All I really know is that after everything that ended the day the whole world went away, there's been no such thing as Heaven or Hell. Just a limbo in the form of an LCL sea that consumed all living souls left on the planet and reduced them to a miserable euphoria they don't want to escape from or don't know how to escape from. But you…it seemed like no matter what choice you were manipulated into deciding, whether it was to help or hurt everyone, you would always be deprived of any hope. An eternity of hopelessness…and consumed by despair. Don't let this happen to you."_

Shinji slowly turned to face her, just to ask her if she could forgive him for what another version of himself had done to her and everyone. But by the time he did, all he caught of her were a few strands of red hair in the air. The girl he knew as Asuka Langley Soryu was gone, leaving him alone again.

" _Idiot,"_ he heard her voice in his ears. _"It was never your fault. For any of this. But, yes, I forgive you. I forgive you."_

-x-

"Uhh…" The nurses heard Asuka groan as she and Misato continued to donate blood for Shinji.

"Gee, Asuka, have you ever donated blood before?" Misato asked her.

"Un-uh," she responded.

"First times are the hardest. It gets easier after a while."

Asuka looked away from the medical bag that was partially filled with her blood and turned to face Shinji, who looked a little paler from his blood loss.

"You're starting to like him a lot more than you initially did for what he did for you a while back, aren't you?" Misato asked her.

"What are you talking about?"

"You're thinking deeply about him. How you were both dealing with an intense situation because you chose to get involved, that…he was all you have?"

"I meant every word of that."

"I don't know why, or even how, but Shinji's holding onto some kind of hope that is different from what we know of."

"A different hope? What could he be hoping towards?"

"Mmm…mnn…hmm…" They heard Shinji mumble as his head moved. "Hmm… Some…something…smells nice. Strawberries…"

Asuka allowed herself a small smile; it was her strawberry hair conditioner that he was smelling.

Shinji's eyes slowly opened and he looked to her.

"Where…are we?" He asked her weakly.

"The hospital," she answered him.

"Is everyone…"

"We're all here."

"You?"

"Just…a little beat from the blood loss here."

All three teens were laying on medical beds where Shinji looked up at the IV pole that held the bag of blood that was being used to transfer Asuka's blood from her left arm into his right arm.

"The doctors said you lost a lot of your own and someone compatible, so Ms. Katsuragi and I volunteered, since we're both O-Negative."

"The universal donor blood."

"How are you feeling?"

"Glad to see you're here. All of you."

-x-

Ritsuko Akagi found herself having to play the role of keeping track of the whereabouts of Misato, Asuka and Rei and having to report back to Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki. Entering the room where the three women were, she showed up just in time to watch Asuka walk out, looking like something terrible had happened. She looked at Misato and Rei, who sat at the table with the mirror in front of them, both of them looking like the same thing had happened.

"Is something wrong?" She asked them.

"We found out something that is bad," explained Rei. "Ikari-Kun was severely injured by Commander Ikari, but was able to incapacitate him before losing consciousness due to blood loss. While unconscious, Ikari-Kun experienced a dream state that spoke more of something that seems to have occurred at an earlier time and may have some ties to the theory of multiple universes existing."

"Like the one he got stranded in?"

"Yeah, and Asuka discovered what was said to Shinji in one of them that…hurt him. Badly." Misato stated grimly. "Do you believe in universes that are literal Hell on Earth-like?"

"I live in one with the Angels attacking us every so often."

As they conversed, in the ladies' room, Asuka splashed water onto her face as she looked at herself in the mirror. It was hard to truly believe, but there was no other way to view what she had once dreamt as a nightmare. To find out that she, or at least another version of herself from another universe where Third Impact happened and NERV failed to prevent it, had caused Shinji to become such a hopeless, suicidal individual by proclaiming her disgust towards his reaction to being caressed on his face after going through a trauma as bad as his had been, it left her wondering if, whether or not it was even possible, the Shinji they knew would even return to this universe.

" _How disgusting,"_ she thought about what the dead doppelgänger had said, which would've been how she herself always thought of Shinji, regardless of what he did, either deliberately, accidentally, or through simple curiosity. _And yet, she asked for his forgiveness for saying what she said that drove him to kill her. I wouldn't ask for forgiveness from him, even if he did try to kill me. Never from him or anyone, for that matter. You don't forgive your killers._

Still, she couldn't overlook the fact that her red-eyed doppelgänger had been willing to put her life on the line to help Shinji beat his father to keep him from gaining possession of Frenzia's hagoromo, which only someone like Shinji could try to inherit from her. How the girl, despite her history with the one she knew and loved, was willing to put up with such a boy that could've done whatever he wanted to her in the bathroom that one time, simply because she chose to.

 _And she hasn't said anything to indicate any contempt towards him,_ she realized; not once through the power of the mirror allowing them to see their interactions, did there appear to be any indication of the red-eyed Asuka having ill will against the Shinji they knew. _She gets throttled by him, but she forgives him. Why can't she just stay away from him?_

" _I'm defending Shinji because he's not a cruel or sadistic person,"_ she remembered her doppelgänger saying in that shared dream that she, Rei and Misato had. _"You shouldn't have any reason justifiable enough to hate or abuse him."_

And, in some respects, she had. She did hate him, and she abused him. Verbally, physically, every chance she had where she felt he had to be shown some sort of error he had committed. Yet, her red-eyed self treated him as she did the one she once knew, like he was in need of companionship and acceptance instead of being dominated. And what was a little awful to her was how her doppelgänger was Shinji's dead self's lover, something she couldn't comprehend without feeling disgusted.

 _My Gott, no wonder my dead self said why the other Third Child killed her,_ she realized.

-x-

Shinji awoke again and found himself in a private room, feeling less injured from before. But that did nothing to quell the uneasiness he felt from the sight of the unfamiliar ceiling above him.

"I really hate unfamiliar ceilings," he sighed.

He tried to move his right hand, but felt a weight upon it, and he turned to see what was keeping him from moving the appendage.

Asuka, asleep at his side, was holding his arm and using it as a pillow.

 _She and Misato did donate blood for me,_ he thought, and decided to let the girl continue resting on his arm. _It's not like I have anything else to do right now. I may need to focus on my recovery before anything else._

Laying his head back down, he tried to focus on something besides the unfamiliar ceiling. Anything to refrain from thinking about that…or the potential risks of Kagami having his father with him and his C-Genome research faction. He'd have to deal with that matter later, but it would have to wait until he was fit to do so.

"Shinji," he heard Asuka mumble. "You're all we have… You're all I have… I don't want to lose you again…either of you…"

She was talking in her sleep, similar to the Asuka he knew from his universe, but she was talking about him. Or his deceased counterpart. It could get confusing much of the time whenever he thought about it all differently from how he usually tried to think about it.

"Hey, you're awake," he heard someone say to him, and he looked at where the door was, seeing Misato and the rest of the group walk in.

"Hey," he greeted them. "How long has it been since we got here?"

"Just two days," answered Toya to him. "It's good that you're still alive, Shinji."

"Has it really been two days?"

"Yeah," Yui expressed as she sat down in a chair by the wall across the room. "How do you feel?"

"Like I sometimes feel after a conflict. Except it wasn't a large monster I was up against. It was a monster that used to be someone I hardly knew who was here for just one thing that he could never have…and must never possess." Then he looked back at the sleeping Asuka. "Um…how long has Asuka been here with me?"

"Believe it or not," went Aki, "she's been here after she donated her blood."

"With the exception of periodic bathroom trips," added Q-Chan, "she has…hasn't left your side."

"She worried over you," Anzu stated. "You, Shinji, as in the guy she only met recently."

-x-

"…So, do think you can explain this, sir?" Kagami asked Gendo, setting the medical paper on his lap.

Gendo, looking a little more human and no longer much of a monster, looked down at the paper and recognized DNA match-ups when he saw them now.

"It's irrelevant," he responded coldly.

"Despite the hagoromo we have being present when you arrived unannounced and attacked the security guards, you chose not to try and take it over one the Ikari may have…yet neither does the boy. And yet, you were willing to kill him, which I'm afraid I can't have you do…for he has become immensely invaluable to the project I have."

"My agency had him first. He was an expendable asset in a war between the survival of mankind and its destruction."

"And what would your agency be called? I doubt there's any such organization that exists around here where you have any authority. And you actually tried to kill your own son. So give me one reason why I shouldn't have you executed for your attempt on who is, perhaps, the only male C-Genome alive?"

-x-

Asuka wanted to go back to Misato's apartment to be by herself, but her guardian wanted her here to help her and Rei continue connecting to the world Shinji was in. They just found out what had occurred in at least one other universe and how bad it had been between the Second and Third Children there…and they still needed to try and monitor the boy they knew. It was starting to feel like bad air was filling up NERV, and the conflict between Shinji and his father, the dream Shinji was in where he engaged in conversation with a decayed version of Asuka, and the boy's continued displacement just seemed to make the breathing space between the three women worse.

"Ready?" Misato asked the girls, holding the mirror.

"Yes, Major," answered Rei.

"Yeah," Asuka responded, and the First and Second Children touched the mirror with her.

The glass rippled and showed Shinji in a dark hallway where moonlight illuminated it through the windows as he gazed out at the quiet city streets.

" _Shinji,"_ they heard Asuka's voice, and Shinji turned right to the red-eyed Asuka, who seemed relieved just to see him.

" _Asuka,"_ he responded. _"I just needed to use the bathroom and there wasn't a bedpan_ _…_ _and privacy."_

" _I'm just glad you're alive. When that man attacked and hurt you, I worried that that was it for you. I feared for your life_ _…_ _and I didn't want what could've happened to you to happen to you."_

" _I didn't want what could've happened to you to happen to you, either, Asuka. When we took out my father, the vision I had of what he did to you_ _…_ _It just faded away. I'm not entirely sure what it means."_

" _I think I do. It was the same with what I saw happen to you. I saw him rip a hole right through your chest_ _…_ _and that vision faded away, too. Faded away, came undone, erased from existence, whichever way you choose to view it. It seems to mean_ _…_ _he's no longer a threat to either of us. Or anyone else, for that matter. We stopped him."_

" _We stopped him?"_

" _Well, yeah. I couldn't let him do away with you. You're a good person…and I don't meet many people that can look past my eyes and see me for me."_

" _I see you…and I see kindness and acceptance."_

" _Thank you."_

The three watched as the red-eyed Asuka then, likely crossing a line between the two, embrace Shinji, surprising the boy.

" _You're not the Shinji I grew up with,"_ they heard her say. _"I can accept that. You're both different in ways of which there isn't much reason to try and compare the two of you…but I care for the both of you, regardless. I knew what he went through and why he did what he did…and I know what you went through…so…may I please hold you like this for a while, Shinji?"_

They didn't hear Shinji speak, but saw him raise his hands up and place them on her back. The look on his face was still that of surprise, but the expression softened to one of acceptance and comfort.

" _I…I don't know if this is even the right thing to ask,"_ Shinji uttered, worried, _"but…is it alright for me to be here? I mean, if I could go back to my world and stop the Angels from hurting the people…and then come back here…could I stay here…with all of you?"_

" _I'd like that,"_ she responded.

-x-

"…Now that we seem to understand each other, Gendo Ikari, if that's even who you truly are," said Kagami to the megalomaniac after having Wei Fei Li beat the incapacitated man almost senseless, "you know where we stand regarding Shinji Ikari."

Slumped against a wall, a bruised and bleeding Gendo looked up at the man that refused to be intimidated by the likes of him.

"Whether or not he is who you say he is…is as you put your biological ties to you: Irrelevant. I've met him and seen what he's capable of, which makes him invaluable alongside the hagoromo. But you've harmed him and have, for the time being, made getting him an unavailable option, so I'll give you this warning. If what you did to him in any way makes his value to the C-Genome project less than what was expected…then you will pay for your interference…with your very life."

Gendo wanted to counter him, to shoot him and Wei Fei Li, but he was too injured to even spit on the floor in front of their feet.

"You had best pray that the kid recovers from his injuries when we go back to see him," Wei Fei Li told him, using one of the ends of his three-section staff to threaten him in the face. "Otherwise, you won't have much of a lifeline or shelf life for your arrogance and interference."

Whack! Gendo was then knocked out.

To be continued…

A/N: My apologies for taking so long to finish this chapter. Each story has its needs. But what did you think of the revelation that explains why things went down the way they did and why one world that we know of is stripped bare of any salvation?


	23. What her Sapphire Eyes Believe In

Creation began on 01-24-18

Creation ended on 02-01-18

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: What her Sapphire Eyes Believe In

A/N: The title is a reversal of a chapter from the original manga.

After the concert, Rei Ayanami stood before Shuro Tsukasa and bowed her head in respect to the singer.

"I owe you many thanks for what you did," she praised Shuro. "Arigato."

"I must confess, I didn't think the crowd would enjoy your song," Shuro responded, "but I must ask… Do you think my singing helped the boy we haven't seen that is not the one you knew that died a year ago? I mean, do you believe you helped him?"

Rei looked at her reflection in the mirror and stared at her blue eyes.

"Yes," she answered the singer. "I believe I did help him…but it wasn't entirely I that helped him. My foster sister, Asuka, helps him just as much as I want to. People like your friends, Ms. Aya Mikage, help him, as well. And in turn, he helps them."

"Can I ask you a personal question, which you are free to not answer?"

"You may."

"If this guy is the same as the one that died to keep from harming your sister, and you met him in person…would you tell him of your personal feelings? I mean, would you let him know how you feel and see if he reciprocates?"

Rei didn't answer her. It wasn't because she chose not to, but because she didn't have an answer to the question. She just knew that she had to help this Shinji, but not what to do afterwards. If, by chance, they did meet, what would this boy think of her, if he even thought of anything about her at all?

Would he view her as she was or would he see comparisons between her and some other girl named Rei Ayanami? Based on the dreams she had of this boy, there was another albino girl just like her, with the sole exception of her eyes being red instead of blue…and somewhat paler than she herself was, like she was truly sickly. If anything, this girl and the Asuka of that world were partial reversals of she and her sister, with their personalities and eyes being the only deviation between them.

"I doubt he'd want anything to do with me," she gave her opinion over the boy. "So long as he's alive and free to decide his own choices with the support of the people around him, I'll be alright with knowing that."

"But there's a difference between being alright…and being happy, Ms. Ayanami."

-x-

 _"But there's a difference between being alright_ _…_ _and being happy, Ms. Ayanami,"_ Rei recalled Shuro's words as she laid on the roof of the tour bus GeSANG was currently using.

Truth be told, she lived each day with regret for never telling the Shinji she knew was dead how she felt…but didn't hate herself as much as she probably should've for supporting Asuka's relationship with him because she had the courage to make the first move she never did. Sometimes, she would think of yelling at the redhead about what was so special about her that drew Shinji to her, about how he treated her when they were alone…and if she ever crossed the line with him. But then, she'd be no better than she was sure dozens of people had been to her years ago because of her red eyes…and Rei, despite her designation as the good girl, didn't want to vent out whatever frustrations she possessed on others. That just wasn't the type of person she was…and half the time, she wasn't really sure what type of person she was…or wanted to be.

 _I don't even know if it was just a senseless crush because he was a seemingly solitary guy,_ she thought as she looked up at the night sky. _I never could say what my heart was urging me to say to him. So many worries of the unknown. So many regrets. So many unanswered questions of the heart._

" _I'm fine,"_ she remembered Asuka saying to her a year ago after she found her in the nurse's office recovering from her collapse in class. _"I just miss Shinji."_

"And I have more self-control over my own emotions to the point where I never say what I really want to say," she uttered to herself. "Why? Why did my heart betray me when it should've made me do what I didn't before he died? Maybe I could've done something to stop him."

But all she had left right now was a small belief, a tiny speck of hope, that this displaced Shinji Ikari could be a sign of redemption for the one she knew and that her sister lost. She allowed herself a brief fantasy of an impossibility, but it brought a small smile to her face. She envisioned a scene of a view of the ocean from a secluded spot somewhere, with a large tree with a trunk wide enough to support the backs of three people, and sitting against it was Asuka, herself and Shinji (she wasn't sure which one, though). They weren't really doing anything except sleeping, but what she focused the fantasy the most on…were the three of them just holding hands.

To be continued…

A/N: I'll let you wonder the possibilities and impossibilities of what could happen in the future. But do tell me what you think of this blue-eyed version of Rei Ayanami from the Ceres universe, though. Does she seem better than the one from the Eva universe or about even?


	24. Far from settled

Creation began on 01-24-18

Creation ended on 02-20-18

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Far from settled

Three days had passed since that day and things in the city had returned to a semblance of normality, although the Mikage International building had been condemned due to its internal structural damage. But that didn't matter to a particular group as they walked out the hospital after one of their own was given the okay to leave.

"So…what now?" Aki Mikage asked.

"What now is… I have no idea what is next," said Yui Ikari in response to his question. "It's been three days since… I'm open to suggestions, though. Anyone?"

"I would suggest that we try to put everything behind us," uttered Asuka Soryu-Ayanami to them as she helped Shinji to walk until he had recovered more strength in his left leg, "but I don't think we could right now, even if we wanted to."

"I don't believe we should, either," went the teen Misato Katsuragi to her. "The bigger problems haven't been resolved yet."

"We…should probably head back to Magatama Town and decide where to go from there," Shinji suggested; he already knew what things had been settled and what hadn't been, but he wanted to hear from them what they felt they should do.

"I'm all for returning home," responded Anzu Ikari to him. "This city's too loud right now."

"We can't leave just yet," Misato spoke up.

"Huh?" Yui reacted.

"I mean, we can't leave because the twins haven't gone to see their mother, who's in the hospital we just walked out of."

"We don't really need to see her, you guys," said Aki to them.

"What do you mean?" Shinji and Asuka questioned, and the boy looked to the Mikage twins.

"Aya, your mother is here…and you haven't gone to see her yet?" Shinji asked her.

"It's not that simple, Shinji," Aya explained. "She wouldn't know we were there to see her."

Shinji inhaled and turned to walk up to the girl, his left leg giving him some degree of difficulty as he stood up in front of her, breathing as though he had lost a lot of strength just by doing so.

"Nothing ever is simple, Ms. Mikage," he panted. "I can accept that as the truth. I can accept that Asuka and I prevented two halves of the same future from ever happening after we both took out my father, that you and Aki have been saved from cruel fates brought upon by centuries of spiritual and celestial unrest, even that things with Kagami are far from dealt with…but what I can't accept, that I refuse to let you do…is not see your mother, even if she's not aware of your presence. If I have to drag you both back in there by your hands, legs or even napes, with a firm grip, and up the necessary flights of stairs to whatever room she's being kept in to recover…you are going to go see her. Now."

If this was Shinji's idea of a threat, Aya had to admit to herself that it was the most positive threat she had ever received from anyone since the fiasco with Ceres started. Someone from another universe related to the one that passed away in this one, also related to a celestial maiden who was more powerful than Ceres was, refusing to let her or Aki walk away without first seeing their mother…because they were so concerned with his own recovery.

"Only if you sit down and rest, Shinji," she responded, giving in.

-x-

After being given a few hours off to recoup, Asuka returned to Misato's apartment and fell onto her bed.

 _He asked her first,_ she thought, thinking of the scene in the mirror where Shinji and her red-eyed doppelgänger were alone in the hospital hallway. _Why would he ask if he could stay with them in their world if it were possible for him to return to this one? He doesn't belong there. It seems like a lousy attempt to escape from reality. Yet, he asked her first, wanting her answer. Her answer was the only one that mattered to him at that time._

" _I'd like that,"_ her doppelgänger told him.

Based solely on the way she had said it, Asuka suspected that her red-eyed counterpart, due to saving him from his father's wrath and he defending her from said father, had fallen in love with this Shinji in a similar case as with the dead Shinji that killed himself to keep from killing her. It could've been more like emotional moments due to the intensity of the situation, but then it'd be almost like one of those cheap action thrillers with bits of romance thrown in. The Second Child then had to remind herself that her red-eyed doppelgänger hadn't grown up in a world devastated by Second Impact, that her parents didn't split up or commit suicide after an experiment gone awry, or was even selected by people of a government or paramilitary agency to operate a giant cyborg to fight giant monsters, that this girl was stigmatized merely because of her red eye heritage and her parents died in a plane crash and was taken in by the mother of a friend of her mother's…and moved to a town where she wouldn't be stigmatized because of her eyes…and met the love of her life.

 _Alternate universes that are the result of one universe shattering into many, with many possibilities of different lifestyles or ways of life,_ she had to consider; if such a phenomenon were possible, then there existed a universe for every possible scenario, every possible eventuality. _Ones where the Angels never existed, where NERV was never founded, or even where Shinji was never selected to pilot the Eva. Those type of universes would be like dreams come true for him._

She closed her eyes and fell to sleep.

"Aaaaaaaaaahhhh!" A scream woke her up, three hours later, but the apartment was empty.

"What the Hell?!" She gasped; the scream sounded like Shinji's, only unhinged and full of torment. _Did I just imagine him screaming?_

-x-

Shinji clutched his chest under his shirt, feeling like a jolt of some sort passed through his heart, as he slumped against the wall behind himself.

"Shinji?" Anzu spoke, looking at him with concern. "Are you okay?"

"Just…a little heartburn," he answered.

"You're lying," said Misato to him. "You don't know what caused your heart to feel pain."

They were outside the room housing the Mikage twins' mother, not really able to hear whatever was being spoken by the two siblings to the unconscious woman, but from the observation window that showed them, they could see the subtle discomfort Aya exhibited from being unable to help their mother beyond just waiting for her to recover.

"You can't force people in such states to recover for you," Yui sighed. "They either do so at their pace…or not at all."

"Speaking from personal experience?" Yuuhi asked her.

"Sort of. Someone I used to work with had once been a coma for two years when he was fifteen. It's only dreadful…when those waiting decide to give up when they feel it's hopeless to continue. It's only hopeless when you choose to give up hope."

"But…isn't hope harder to hold onto during hard times?" Asuka questioned.

"Sometimes," Shinji uttered, and then decided to step into the room. _What am I doing? I mean, what am I doing now? What am I doing?_

Aya and Aki turned to face him and he raised his hands to greet them.

"Sorry," he apologized for his intrusion. "How is she doing?"

"Still the same," Aya answered him.

He looked down at Mrs. Mikage and bowed his head to her.

"Does she know that you two are gonna be fine now that the situation with Ceres is over?"

"Yeah, we told her," Aki answered him, "though, it's not like she can actually hear us."

"That's not true. She can hear you talking. The more you talk to her, the more you talk to each other, the more likely she'll recover in due time. Sometimes, even holding her hand helps. I mean… You should give it a try."

"Hmm…" They heard someone mumble.

Shinji turned to face the others, but they were too far outside the room for any of their voices to be of the tone of the one they heard.

"Mother?" Aki questioned, and they looked back at Mrs. Mikage, who was stirring!

"Mmm…" The woman mumbled, and then opened her eyes, looking at them. "A…Aya? A…Aki? You're both here."

"Mom," Aya gasped; she hadn't expected her to wake up at all, but this was a surprise for her.

-x-

The damaged sight of Unit-01 didn't ease Misato's concerns in the least. Even if it was restrained by the cage, she feared it could still come to life at any moment and behave in frightening ways, with disastrous outcomes. And the worst was thinking of how many alternate universes there were truly in existence where the Evangelion, instead of being mankind's salvation, became mankind's damnation.

 _If that dream we saw Shinji in was more than just a dream and there is such a thing as a multiverse, then the Asuka he was talking to was from one where Third Impact happened and destroyed everything, where people destroyed everything…and someone like Shinji went mad._

"We're likely looking at a month-and-a-half to repair the Evas and the base," she heard Ritsuko say to her on the umbilical bridge in front of the Eva.

"That's assuming the Angels continue to attack after the last incident," she told her back. "Maybe in some alternate universe, they stop after this Angel."

"You shouldn't believe in the existence of multiple dimensions so much. People can go crazy assuming that there's more than one universe that stems from causality."

"And what of the Twelfth Angel? It linked to another universe and Shinji got stranded there. And then, Commander Ikari somehow got there and almost killed him for something he couldn't have. If it were all nothing more than a bad dream, I'd be looking the other way, but nothing that has happened for the last few days has been anything but an unusual dream."

Ritsuko wouldn't say it, but she believed in the multiverse theory herself after seeing what she saw in the mirror. That…and some odd dreams she herself had recently after the Twelfth Angel. Sometimes, she would see things she couldn't explain, and other times, things that didn't add up under a logical sense. The last dream she had was of Gendo shooting and killing her…after telling her that he loved her.

 _No way was he being honest,_ she thought, _and he lost the First Angel to his son after trying to kill him for an heirloom of a celestial being. Without the First Angel, it might be impossible to achieve the Human Instrumentality Project._

-x-

It was quite the reunion for the Mikage family that was the twins and their mother. It seemed like, with the sole exception of the loss of their father, Aya and Aki seemed to be on the path to recovery.

"Maybe your presence helped in her awakening, Shinji," said Anzu to the recovering boy outside the room.

"You really think so?" He asked her.

"I do," said Asuka to him. "You defy fate."

"You're a mirakuru, Shinji," added Misato to the assumption and belief that he was capable of causing a spontaneous recovery in certain people. "You're like this fairy tale about a wandering samurai whose swords could either harm the extremely-difficult-to-overcome or revive the injured and displaced. He was called Mirakuru Samurai… The Miracle Samurai. You're a modern-day Mirakuru Samurai, Shinji. Your emotions are one sword…and your relationships are another sword."

"Thank you, Misato," he praised her. _A modern-day Miracle Samurai, huh? It is a nice concept._

-x-

"…So, with Commander Ikari currently displaced in the same universe that the Third Child is displaced in, you're the one in charge of running NERV, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki," Ritsuko informed the elder on the command bridge of the ruins of the primary Central Dogma chamber. "What are your orders, sir?"

"For now…we're to focus on the repairs to the base. After which, repairs on Units-00 and 02 will take priority. Unit-01 is suspended from active duty until further notice."

It seemed like the most obvious way to divert the personnel's attention away from the last attack and forget about it completely. Also, he needed to get his mind away from the theory that the faux-blond woman had mentioned earlier about alternate universes beyond the one Shinji was currently in; there was just no way that he was a believer in such things, even though he was an expert in metaphysical biology, which was beyond the tangible.

 _If such a phenomenon were possible, I'd never wanna know what type of person I was like in another universe,_ he thought, _or how my life ended._

Looking at the giant hole the last Angel made on the bridge, the sub-commander sighed at the fact that he knew his fate in the universe Shinji was in, dying in prison after killing Gendo because he was drunk and hitting Yui. He'd rather pass away from old age and in his sleep than from some sort of violent crime.

" _I have the worst taste in men,"_ he remembered the other Yui saying to Shinji.

Turning away, he saw the very boy that was not here right now.

Gasp!

Shinji didn't look anything like he was supposed to. The boy was taller, his pants red like blood, his face aged prematurely with several wrinkles and his eyes full of malice and fatigue that didn't match up with his apparent sadness. It looked like something terrible had befallen him in his past and this was the horrific result.

"Shinji?" He asked.

"I am tired of everything!" The boy yelled, and his body turned to stone before crumbling to a pile of dust.

Fuyutsuki blinked and the space in front of him was deprived of the dust pile, not even dust particles; did he imagine all of it?

 _An alternate universe where Third Impact happened…and was caused by people,_ he thought about the multiverse theory.

-x-

"…So, you're Shinji Ikari?" Missus Mikage asked, having requested to see Shinji after her unscheduled examination from the doctor.

"Yes, ma'am," he answered her.

"You're…quite an interesting person, according to my children."

"R…really?"

"You don't have to try and sound like you don't know anything about what has been going on. They told me all that they know. I must thank you for helping them when they needed it most."

If she knew the truth, then Shinji didn't need to pretend any ignorance to her. There was no need to feign ignorance towards anyone.

"Your gratitude right now is enough for me," he told her. "But it wasn't entirely my doing that they were set free from their celestial heritage, ma'am. I might've had a direct hand in dealing with Ceres and her husband, but I choose to view how both situations involving the pair were resolved as a group effort. My involvement was recent and I had some confusion about my own situation…but after I met your daughter and found out about the situation she was in, I offered to help her to the best of my ability to do so."

"Your ancestress, though… Is her name really Frenzia?"

"Heh. Yeah. I don't judge her by it, though. She has been helpful and informative ever since I met her a few days ago. Wow."

"What is it?"

"Just thinking about how long it has been since I got here. It's been over…three weeks since I got involved, almost a month or so…and it feels like I've been here longer because of all the 'Q' and 'A' and meeting new and familiar faces."

"Family and friends."

"Yeah."

"As strange as your situation may seem, you're a good person, Mr. Ikari."

"Please, call me Shinji. Formality towards me is unnecessary."

-x-

Rei didn't leave the base. She didn't even leave the room the mirror was in alone for more than an hour. Looking down at it when she chose to return, the albino thought of the Third Child and his…moment with the Second Child's red-eyed doppelgänger in the hospital after reviving from the brutality of Commander Ikari. And then, she picked it back up.

 _Are you alright, Ikari-Kun?_ She wondered, just hoping that he was still alive.

Her reflection rippled and disappeared, replaced by an aerial view of her blue-eyed counterpart laying atop a bus, looking up at the night sky.

" _I should've told him that I had a thing for him,"_ she heard her say, sounding true to her sense of regret. _"It'd be nice to have someone affectionate towards you… To be loved, to be cherished…without a reason beyond one's devotion that is without hidden agendas or withheld emotions that keeps one from committing to a relationship."_

Rei wondered what might've happened with the deceased Shinji Ikari if her blue-eyed counterpart had expressed herself towards him, but couldn't see past the fact that he had been involved with the Second Child's red-eyed counterpart.

The mirror rippled again and this time showed Shinji looking out at a beach with the red-eyed redhead and company, indicating they had left the hospital some time ago.

" _So…what now?"_ She heard the younger version of Major Katsuragi question.

" _No idea,"_ said one of the twins (the girl) in response. _"It's only a matter of who-knows-how-long until Kagami returns or sends his people after Shinji again."_

" _When he does so,"_ Rei heard Shinji's voice as his head turned away from the sight of the sunset towards the others, _"we'll deal with him. We settle this for good so that nobody else with celestial blood and abilities are preyed upon by Mikage or anyone, ever again."_

" _You're probably looking at a long two-three weeks until your back has healed up, though,"_ Yui told him. _"Do you think you can stand putting that time towards something as necessary as resting? The world or this country won't be going anywhere during such a time."_

Two or three weeks to recover would be seen in the eyes of Commander Ikari as a waste of time and synchronization training to Rei, but for the Third Child, who was indisposed beyond the mere damage to his body by his father, could've put that time to use by regaining his strength and allowing his body to recover from the trauma it sustained. And because Commander Ikari was also indisposed, Rei understood that Shinji couldn't be made to be pressured or forced into doing anything that could hamper his recovery, including fighting the Angels or piloting the Eva. The sooner he did recover at his own pace, the sooner he could return to dealing with the situation they were in…and hopefully find a way back to this world.

Setting the mirror down, the albino girl vacated the room after the last thing she saw in it was Shinji looking back at the sunset by the beach.

" _Now's just the time to recoup,"_ he had uttered. _"Now's not the time to stop…because nothing has been completely resolved yet. Not by a long shot."_

-x-

Gendo knew that if his body wasn't so doped up or left in an injured state (and deprived of the Adam embryo) right now, he would have been doing something other than laying on the floor of some small room on some ocean liner being used as a makeshift research facility! No, he'd be out and about trying to find the Third Child and take from him the Ikari family's hagoromo for himself to have. Even if these Mikage International people had an artificial version that was there for the taking, he would pass it over for the one he really desired. But for now, he would have to wait, bide his time for the right moment to make a move on Shinji and take what he deserved more than anyone else…if he lived long enough to do so.

For the time being, his future depended upon the boy surviving from the injuries he gave him. If he was any good at enduring the stress of piloting the Eva, then he would at least be able to recover from life-threatening injuries.

 _You'd better survive, you petulant brat,_ he thought, laying on his back and looking up at the ceiling. _If you expire, I lose the only opportunity I have to claim the Ikari family's hagoromo…and I deserve it more than you don't. I will not be denied._

-x-

Again, it felt like he was intruding upon his dead self's family residence, which made it difficult for Shinji to just step inside the building.

"It's your home, too, you know," he heard his deceased self tell him, appearing in the bathroom. "Just give it a chance."

"Give it a chance," he himself repeated. "Okay, then."

"It's like riding a bike; you never forget."

"Except I've never ridden a bike a day in my life."

"It's an expression. If you try something once and find yourself enjoying it, you're bound to remember it always."

Splashing water on his face, the living incarnation sighed as he vacated the bathroom to return to…his room.

Unfortunately, Asuka was there, laying on the bed, her cell phone in her left hand.

"Asuka?" He asked her.

She turned to face him and got off his bed.

"I just got off the phone with Rei," she explained to him. "She's on her way back from the whole thing with GeSANG in Okinawa…and there was something about that I needed to confide in you in case I didn't tell you before we left the hospital."

"Oh…okay."

"The day your father caused the Mikage International building to become unstable, she said something to me that I found confusing. _'Give that other Shinji my best when you see him'_. At first, I didn't understand what she meant by that…until after I spoke with her a few minutes ago. I think she knows about you, that you're not the Shinji we grew up with, but I can't ascertain exactly how she could know this."

"Could she… Could she have just been joking around?"

"As we got older, there's never been a day where I've known Rei to ever joke around about anything or anyone. I've never even known her to crack a smile at a joke. She takes things serious, and I don't know what she aims to be when she graduates out of school."

"Okay, let's assume that she does know about me. How long do you suspect that she's known?"

"Quite possibly since before the anniversary day that our Shinji died. Maybe on that exact day, even. I'm not really sure."

"Should I meet her?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think you should."

Shinji then noticed the blanket on the floor where he slept the last time he was here with Asuka and sighed.

"Nuh-uh, Shinji," she told him, indicating that she knew what he intended to do. "You need to adjust to being here. Just because this is a completely different life to you, it doesn't have to be completely alien to you. Sleep in your bed tonight. I'll take the floor this time."

Shinji didn't see a way out of this debate (if this was even what it was) and sat on the bed on her left. As much as he felt he shouldn't just yet and wait a few days before confronting that bridge to cross, he had to admit to himself that the mattress was incredibly soft.

"Say," he uttered, "no springs?"

"Top quality foam futon mattress," she answered. "We practically invented futons that feel like they got springs in them when they don't."

Shinji thought of laying back on it, but didn't want to risk reopening his back wounds, and turned over to lay on his front. And boy, did it feel so good.

"Wow," he expressed. "It feels like warm, mashed potatoes or something."

Asuka laid beside him and chuckled. It was actually nice to hear him say something nice about his own bed. Every deity in existence knew she had nice things to say about it.

-x-

She would have to explain in person to her mother her absence from school and everything to Asuka, but Rei believed that she was doing the right thing by helping this displaced Shinji from a distance. Maybe it was fate, or maybe an act of the universe itself, but the blue-eyed bluenette did feel…something beyond what she already felt from helping Tsukasa and GeSANG with the song that calmed the people from afar down. It was…elation, elation from just knowing that someone just like Shinji was here, maybe with Asuka; she couldn't imagine the red-eyed redhead being anything less than her previous state of passion when her lover was among the living.

 _It's still a ways to go before everything is settled for good,_ she thought, looking down at the clouds beneath the plane she was on. _Why do people put so much stock in what they can't see, hear or touch? Why believe in the unbelievable? Maybe it started when we had our first encounter with the impossible…and found ourselves unable to get away from it ever since._

To be continued…

A/N: I don't know how much longer until this story is completed, but if anyone wants to believe in its conclusion, please wait for it.


	25. To Mend Old Wounds

Creation began on 03-04-18

Creation ended on 03-28-18

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: To Mend Old Wounds

Although it felt like it was his right to get some rest in his bed, Shinji didn't really feel the same ease that came with sleep. It was like he was forgetting something that he needed to get off his chest before he couldn't.

"Asuka?" He asked for the red-eyed redhead, hoping she was still awake.

"Yeah?" He heard her response.

"The whole year… I mean… You missed him so much for a whole year, didn't you?"

"Yes…but you're both dear to me…so you could say that I missed you for a whole year, as well."

"Do you believe that everyone is entitled to a second chance?"

"What do you mean?"

"Can people…earn second chances…to make up for their faults, however large or small they were?"

"I believe that…if you feel like you can change for the better…then you deserve a chance to see where the path you're on takes you."

"Thank you."

-x-

"You can't do this, boy," Gendo, angry at his son for turning his back on him in his time of greatest need, yelled at Shinji in the darkness as he walked away with these people that were different from the ones they knew. "You can't do this to me! Come back here!"

But Shinji didn't so much as turn back to face him. The young man, last seen by him with a blank expression directed towards his father, left him to his fate whilst departing for the unknown with the red-eyed Second Child, the doppelgänger of his wife that never built or performed experiments with the Evangelion, a teenage version of Major Katsuragi's doppelgänger and these other nonentities he could care less about.

"You tried to kill my friends," he heard Shinji say to him, his voice sounding a bit raspy, like his throat was dry. "You tried to kill me. All because you want something that will never be yours, no matter what you try. If you want a god-like relic so bad, find your own or make your own. Otherwise, lay there and accept your fate. Your intentions were for naught, regardless of your desires. Try as you might to change your fate, you can never grasp what is beyond your reach."

Gendo tried to move, to leap towards the boy, to strangle his neck and rip the very life out of him, but fell onto his front, left to grunt in the darkness.

"I deserve it more than you, boy," he groaned. "I deserve the hagoromo more than you!"

FLASH! The next thing he knew, Gendo was back in the room he was left in on the large ship; the whole experience he had with Shinji leaving him to suffer as he died had been nothing more than a dream brought on by stress.

"Damn brat," he sighed.

-x-

Tweet-tweet-tweet! The chirping of the birds outside as the sunlight shone through the window were a pleasant feeling to Shinji as he awoke to the new day.

 _Wow,_ he thought, still a bit weak from his injuries, but feeling like he was waking up to a good feeling. _I never thought I'd feel this way to waking up. It's like…waking from a dream…and into another dream. It feels good._

Carefully getting up and turning to his right side, he carefully set his feet down on the floor from Asuka's feet as she awoke.

"Good morning, Shinji," she greeted him.

"Good morning, Asuka," he greeted back. "How do you feel?"

"Like today's going to be a good day."

"That's a good feeling."

-x-

"…So, Ikari found a way to this alternate universe?" SEELE 01 questioned Fuyutsuki during the next meeting with the council members.

"Yes," Fuyutsuki answered. "It's believed that he found a way using the First Angel as a bridge between here and there. However, his reasons for going to the other universe were less than beneficial to NERV and more personal to himself."

"Ikari has been adrift in our patience," said SEELE 06. "What, exactly, were his personal reasons for using an irreplaceable resource to venture to another universe where the Third Child is stranded in…if not to try and reacquire the displaced pilot?"

Fuyutsuki thought for a moment of not divulging the current state of things. Why should he bother with informing these men that were more interested in what they wanted to happen to the world to benefit them when they were just going to be more unsettled by the mere loss of Adam? Why not just lie to them since they lie all the time to the world? But then, just one thought, one name, one person came to mind as he wondered about the worst possible outcome: Shinji. His hallucination of the boy from a possible universe where the world ended and he lost everything still fresh on his conscious.

"Through continued use of a mirror to observe the Third Child in the other world, we discovered that the boy had the opportunity to try and inherit a god-like heirloom from an ancestral member of the Ikari family of that world that would make him a demigod of sorts. Ikari wanted the relic for himself and tried to claim it before his son could. However, the ancestral matriarch of the family, along with a few others, stated that it was impossible for him to obtain the heirloom due to his lack of familial ties; one had to be an Ikari by blood in order to try and inherit the relic." Fuyutsuki revealed; he wasn't going to keep quiet about any of this. "He persisted, however, and tried to kill his son, proclaiming that if he couldn't have the relic, then nobody else could. The Third Child tried to appease Ikari by informing him of another relic that had been obtained artificially by the people he was in the custody of, but his father only wanted the one owned by the Ikari family."

"Treacherous fool," went SEELE 10. "If there was a god-like relic already present and up for grabs, he should've taken that one that was being offered to him! Instead, he wastes time by persistently going after one that won't be his, no matter what he does. Was he even successful?"

"No, and in his attempt to try and kill his son, he may have, inadvertently, lost the Adam embryo."

The council was silent, leaving Fuyutsuki to ponder what they were all thinking.

"What of the state of NERV HQ and the Evas?" SEELE 01 demanded.

"The base and Evas are damaged," he told them. "For the time being, the base is being repaired and then the Evas will be repaired."

"In other words, you've assumed command of NERV in Ikari's absence."

"I have."

"Do keep us informed, Fuyutsuki. This meeting no longer requires your presence."

The holographic monoliths disappeared, leaving the elder alone in the room.

 _Shinji, I hope you're faring better than we are here,_ he thought.

-x-

The grounds around the Ikari house were pleasant, even though they were of a Japanese garden near the beach. It was probably due to the distance from the beach that the garden didn't have such a weird feeling to its beauty. Or, as Shinji suspected as he sat on a bench inside a pavilion, the garden was the primary focus of the architectural construction when the house was being built decades ago.

"Come to think of it," he told himself, holding a cherry blossom in his right hand, "I haven't been in a garden since we left Suzumi's place."

From the house's eastern side porch, Aya, Asuka, Yui and Anzu watched Shinji as he was adjusting to his surroundings on the grounds.

"He's never seen a garden before in his past," Aya stated.

"Only Suzumi's when he arrived here," Anzu clarified.

Asuka sighed and expressed, "Gardens symbolize tranquility. A small patch of land devoid of disorder, violence and cruelty. It wouldn't be weird for him to be in such a peaceful setting where he didn't have to fight anyone for any reason."

"He shouldn't have to fight anyone, period," said Yui, sitting against a support beam with a cup of lemonade in her left hand. "I mean… I hope he doesn't have to while he's recovering. He can just…take it easy and get back in touch with his gentle nature."

As she poured herself another cup, Anzu, once more, made it a point of pride to know her daughter and grandson's lover a little better than they knew themselves when they expressed their concerns or opinions about Shinji. Or, in this case, Shinji's doppelgänger. She remembered the first time Shinji wandered into the garden with Asuka when they were little…and how the girl actually fell into the koi fish pond and Shinji had to pull her out before she caught a chill.

"Anzu?" Aya spoke, breaking the elder from her train of thought.

"I'm sorry, what?" She responded.

"I asked if this garden has been here for a long time."

"Oh, yes. One-hundred-twenty years, but everything gets renovated every twenty-thirty years to keep it up to date."

"That explains the new paint smell I picked up when I came over for the first time," Asuka stated. "It was renovated recently from before I met Shinji?"

"Yeah. About three months before you met him, I believe."

They then saw Shinji get up and walk over to a branch covered in cherry blossoms.

Asuka recalled a time when Shinji would seldom times feel enticed by the scent of the flowers. They were one of the few things that made him calm, even if it was only for a short while.

" _Asuka,"_ she recalled him saying to her when she was seven, holding a necklace made of cherry blossoms, _"for you."_

Ring! The doorbell rang, and the ladies were curious as to who was at the door; with the sole exception being Asuka's frequent visiting, and Aya and her friends appearing unannounced from a few days earlier, Anzu and Yui never really had any guests or other visitors.

"I'll get it," Anzu told them as she got up, followed by Aya, who wanted to see if Yuuhi or Toya needed help in the kitchen.

Shinji smelled the flowers on the lowest tree branch and felt calmer. In fact, he didn't feel the presence of the Rage-filled Anchor trying to influence his actions, physical or verbal, at all. If anything, he just felt the pain in his back and the peace surrounding him.

 _I want to believe that it's not going to act up again, but I don't want to jinx this tranquility for agony,_ he thought, afraid that the Rage-filled Anchor would act up if he so much as got near someone he cared about and left himself vulnerable to a mishap.

-x-

Anzu opened the door and looked outside, but saw nobody.

"Probably a bunch of pranksters," she suspected.

"Down here," she heard a female voice in front of her, and looked down. "Hello."

It was a girl, probably the age of an eight-year-old, with dark brown eyes and dark, pinkish hair tied in a pair of ponytails, dressed in a schoolgirl uniform that didn't belong to any school in Magatama Town.

"I'm sorry, but are you lost?" Anzu asked her.

"No, ma'am," the girl responded. "I'm looking for someone named Yuuhi. My name is…"

"Chidori?!" Yuuhi, who was coming out of the kitchen, gasped as he saw her. "What are you doing here? I mean, what are you doing here?"

Aya and Toya came out from behind Yuuhi and saw the girl.

"Yuuhi! Aya! Toya!" The girl, Chidori, addressed the three. "I was actually hoping you would be here!"

"Um, excuse me, but what is all the commotion about?" Shinji, coming back into the house, asked, and saw the girl he had seen only from a distance by touching Yuuhi and seeing a future that had been erased from existence with his deviation. "Oh, my… You're her. You're Chidori Kuruma."

Chidori looked at him and felt a degree of confusion. It was like she had met this boy before, but this was the first time. Or was it?

"I'm sorry, but…have we met before?" She asked him.

Before he could say anything, Asuka came in with Yui and Misato…and the red-eyed redhead looked at Chidori like she was seeing another ghost.

"Chidori Kuruma?" She asked.

Chidori looked at her…and recognized those red eyes from three years ago.

"Asuka Soryu-Ayanami?" She responded.

Shinji was officially confused. Did Asuka know Chidori? Was he supposed to know her? Did they have history together? Something he wasn't understanding?

-x-

"Asuka?" Misato gasps, seeing the Second Child in the halls of NERV HQ. "You're back. You… What are you doing back?"

Asuka sighed and explained, "A while ago, I heard a scream at the apartment. It sounded like one Shinji would make, only it was the loudest I've ever heard. Have you seen or heard anything out of the ordinary since the last time we looked at that mirror?"

"Just a small daydream of Shinji," she answered the girl.

"Not a very pleasant one, I assume?"

"It felt like a memory, but it never happened before. Or…it hasn't happened yet in this universe, at least. I think I get why that world we saw Shinji in when he was dreaming in that mirror as a dead one. Everything during the time leading up to its end was just going bad…and instead of trying to make things better, I made things worse with Shinji. I kept telling him to pilot the Eva, but he didn't want to do it, anymore. I didn't give him a choice. And…he didn't have a choice. He never had a choice."

"There was no choice to begin with," Asuka stated. "It was fight or die."

"But what about now? Shinji's in a situation where he doesn't have to fight Angels, but has to deal with people after other people, like a younger version of myself, whatever it is he's getting into with your red-eyed counterpart, his dead self, his father who wanted Frenzia's hagoromo, and his mother's counterpart. But he's currently on the mend due to his injuries."

"And there's also…what he asked her in the hospital. Do you think he'll do it, though? If he even finds a way to fulfill such a goal?"

"Well, she told him that she would like it. All we really know from what we saw in the mirror…was that your doppelganger was involved with his before he killed himself to keep from killing her…and she's attracted to him because she cares about him exactly as he is. She doesn't view our Shinji as the one she knew and loved, but cares about him all the same."

"Do you think it'd be wrong if he did, though?"

"I can't answer that question."

-x-

It was quite a shocker to hear this from the two girls, but it explained the confusion for Shinji. The history clarification and questions of relationship issues. It turned out that three years ago, Chidori Kuruma…and Asuka Soryu-Ayanami…had a falling out because the former couldn't look past the latter's red eyes…and Shinji (before he killed himself) had told the girl that she had to look past his girlfriend's eyes and accept her for who she was…and to never look for her again until she could.

"…I can't believe that Chidori and Asuka once knew each other," said Yuuhi to Aya and Aki as they sat in the garden pavilion, watching Chidori engage in conversation with Asuka and Shinji. "Is it really that hard for people to look past those that have red eyes?"

"I guess for some, anyone with red eyes is viewed as being either a demon or with a demonic heritage," suggested Aki. "But Ms. Soryu-Ayanami isn't a bad person."

"She just suffered bad, personal losses in her past," added Aya, able to look past the girl's eyes and see the kindness within her heart.

Away from the three, on the porch of the house, Shinji, silent in this matter that was taking place between Asuka and the girl whose very future was changed because of him informing the others and helping to prevent the spread of pain and loss, wondered if he was doing the right thing by just being present for the verbal spat.

"I owe you something, Ms. Soryu-Ayanami," said Chidori to Asuka.

"Is that so?" Asuka questioned, her disgust towards the girl still lingering.

"Yeah (Chidori then extended out her right hand in front of the redhead). I am sorry for not having looked past your eyes and seeing you for you. It is not easy for most people to overlook something that has no true relevance to any history or culture, even when there's no explanation for why anyone inherits the eye color they do. I'm seeing you now, looking past your eyes…and asking for your forgiveness for what I said to you three years ago. Can you forgive me?"

Asuka looked at Shinji, as if needing his approval before making her choice.

He decided to just nod in the positive for her to forgive the girl; whatever happened in the past should stay in the past and only be dredged up to try and get to a positive or more enlightened future in the present, not to refrain from doing such.

"I think three years is long enough to let go of an old sense of turmoil and anger," Asuka stated, and shook Chidori's hand. "I'll forgive you, Ms. Kuruma."

"Thank you."

-x-

"…I guess Rei decided to stick around in case something happened with Shinji," Misato sighed, seeing the First Child asleep at the table in front of the mirror.

Asuka walked over and picked up the mirror, seeing nothing but her reflection.

 _He's probably off somewhere getting the royal treatment for his injuries,_ she thought, just wanting to think that Shinji would do something, anything, to escape from responsibility and dealing with people or threats like his father.

Setting the mirror back on the table, the redhead sat down at the table.

"Well, a few more hours won't change anything," said Misato as she sat down and picked up the mirror. "Everybody's orders are to start repairing the base. The base first and then Eva Units-00 and 02. Unit-01 is suspended from active duty."

"Why are the Evas being treated as a secondary concern?"

"Commander Fuyutsuki's orders."

"Commander Fuyutsuki's?"

"Well, yeah. Commander Ikari is absent from the base, is currently somewhere in the same, alternate universe as Shinji, possibly with no means to return, and Fuyutsuki was next in the chain of command here. So, he has the last say of any order given."

"I hope he knows what he's doing."

"You took the words right out of my mouth."

Looking at the mirror, Misato didn't see anything beyond herself…until her reflection rippled. Then, it was replaced with the image of her younger doppelgänger in the living room of the Ikari house with everyone else.

-x-

"…So, what brings you here to Magatama Town?" Aya asked Chidori as they all gathered in the living room.

"When I heard there was some sort of disaster at Mikage International, I called Suzumi, and she mentioned that you guys were here," the girl explained. "I asked her to keep an eye on my brother and I came down to find you. Although, I had no idea the situation you were in had changed a lot."

"Yeah, a lot has changed since the last time I called you," Yuuhi explained. "We had a lot of help in dealing with Ceres and the search for her hagoromo."

"You mean, you found it and everything?"

"Yeah," said Aki to her. "Or rather, Shinji and his celestial ancestress, Frenzia, were the ones responsible for finding it. Our information from Ceres wasn't as solid as Frenzia's had been."

"Who's Frenzia?"

"She's the celestial matriarch of the Ikari family," Aya explained. "Shinji here is her current male descendant that she communicates through."

"A male celestial? I thought all the descendants were female."

"Apparently, Shinji is the sole exception to that belief. He even did what we couldn't when it came to Mikage International," said Yuuhi.

"Oh? And what did you do, Shinji? Please, do tell."

"Well, uh…it wasn't really just me. That would be saying I did everything, which would be wrong. I tried to bargain with Kagami of Mikage International. If they agreed to release the women they already had and leave them alone, I would cooperate with them. Of course, I still intend to make sure that they stop for good, but I don't know when that'll be." Shinji explained his involvement, not wanting to give himself so much of the credit. "I really want to say that my involvement started when Aya and Toya found me…and it's complicated. Sort of."

"Complicated" was just one way of saying this Shinji's involvement because Chidori didn't know the whole story. Not even the fact that this Shinji was not the one she had met three years ago.

"What could be more complicated than you being a male celestial descendant that helped Aya find Ceres' hagoromo, free her brother from her spouse, free the other descendants of celestial maidens from Mikage International and everything else you've done since Aya and Toya met?" Chidori asked him.

Shinji looked at the women that knew him best, wanting their permission to divulge the truth before he said anything more.

"Unless you believe in other worlds, alternate universes, not just life after death or ancient spirits returning from centuries past," expressed Yui to Chidori, "it's hard to explain without actually saying things that don't make sense."

"After meeting Aya and discovering that her family's more shadier members were after me and other girls with celestial powers, I think I can take whatever you say to me that may not make sense at all. Try me, please."

Yui looked at the others and sighed.

"Have you ever heard of films like _The One_ or _Perfect Blue_?" Shinji questioned Chidori; he was hoping that either film would serve as a form of reference or example to his predicament.

"I've seen _The One_ ," she answered.

"Multiple universes exist beyond this one. Alternates of people exist beyond the ones we know…or don't know. Every possibility exists for every eventuality that exists."

"Alternates of people? Different types of lives lived by different variations of us?"

"That's what he's saying," Asuka stated. "It's what we're all saying."

"And…how does it complicate things with you guys?"

"Because Shinji here…isn't the one we knew. He…died a year ago. This Shinji…is from an alternate universe that is…less than pleasant."

Chidori looked at Shinji and then pointed at his face.

"But he looks so much like him," she calmly stated. "I mean, he sounds like him, too. How…is he not the one we knew?"

Shinji looked at his left hand, opening and closing it a few times before holding it out to Chidori.

"We've seen his past," Anzu explained. "Maybe you can see it, too."

Chidori was willing to believe them, and accepted Shinji's hand. For a moment, nothing happened. At first, she thought it was because she was simply being deceived, but still… There was nothing to see from holding his hand.

"I'm not seeing anything," she revealed.

"Well," Shinji sighed, "it was just a possibility that you could see. There was no guarantee that anyone else could see anything about my past."

"But even so, that doesn't mean I don't…"

FLASH! As she attempted to let go of his hand, Chidori's eyes flared pink!

Like a movie on fast-forward, the young girl saw the life of this boy running before her eyes. How he lost his mother at an early age, how his father left him and didn't have much of any contact with him, the day he was called to this city just to face a monster with no hope of surviving, being boiled alive inside the cybernetic behemoth at one point, even having to risk his life to stop a creature that was literally a big bomb from blowing up a large patch of the Japanese nation. Oh, she saw everything, even things that were, more or less, private and embarrassing, disturbing and brutal, cold and sorrowful, and full of heartache in places. The girl even saw how the boy ended up here and was found by Aya and Toya, how he somehow saw a future in which she had been killed by touching Yuuhi, even saving the life of Aki with the aid of Asuka, Anzu, Yui and Aya.

"Oh!" She gasped, letting go of his hand, shuddering from the aftereffects of seeing this Shinji's entire past up to the present. "Ahh…ahh…ahh. It's all true. It's… You… They…"

"Hey," Yuuhi quickly silenced her. "Breathe."

Chidori did as instructed, calming down. It helped a lot to her conscious.

"Now," Yuuhi spoke again, "what exactly did you see, Chidori?"

"Everything," she answered. "I saw everything. How he got here, what he saw that could've happened to me when you touched him, that time at the hospital, your time at the Mikage building, everything. It was…like a movie on fast-forward, but I… I was able to understand everything that happened."

"Crazy, right?" Shinji asked her, just wanting to know her opinion.

"Celestial descendants and people wanting to capture them is crazy. You being from another world stranded in this one and you changing everything with your mere presence is…quite sane to me."

"Oh, he's sane?" Aya questioned.

"How else would you explain everything he was able to do to change things? It's nothing short of an unusual sanity."

"In an insane world, who is the sanest of people alive?" Anzu expressed, catching everyone's attention. "I mean, really, when you think the world is unhinged, how do you know who in it isn't unhinged?"

"That," said Toya, "is the question that may have no answer."

"An unanswerable question," Yui agreed with him.

-x-

"…An unanswerable question, indeed," went Misato, setting the mirror down to rest her hand.

"That girl, Chidori, believes he's sane, yet everything around them all is clearly insane," Asuka stated. "I don't understand how anyone would see it that way."

The redhead picked up the mirror again and saw the glass ripple, revealing Shinji and her red-eyed counterpart sitting in the pavilion in the garden at night; some time had passed.

"… _I'll be honest, Shinji, I am glad your actions ended up saving Chidori's life,"_ the red-eyed Asuka told him, laying down on the bench beside him. _"You did something really selfless, changing people's fates every time to make it so that they live."_

" _Thank you, Asuka,"_ Shinji responded, leaning his head back against a pillar to rest. _"Ah."_

" _Are you okay?"_

" _Yeah, I'm just_ _…_ _so tired now."_

Misato looked at the red-eyed Asuka as she got up and checked Shinji's right arm to confirm his pulse.

" _Please, Asuka,"_ they heard him say to her, _"I have no intention on dying any time this evening_ _…_ _or the next evening_ _…_ _or the evening after. It's just more exhaustion."_

" _Yeah. People that get hurt as bad as you did, they get tired faster as they recoup."_

Then, maybe because the girl was still concerned for the boy, she checked Shinji's back and saw that his bandages were a little bloody, indicating that they needed to be changed soon.

"He'd better not die over there," said Asuka to Misato. "I mean, he just better not succumb to those injuries his old man gave him for fighting back against him."

"I don't think any of the people there, including our doppelgangers, will let him die," she told her, seeing her red-eyed counterpart help him back into the house.

-x-

Kagami was not in high spirits tonight. Not even the sight of the artificially-created hagoromo that was only possible through the Katsuragi girl helped to ease his concerns. It was only this afternoon that he received word from his superiors regarding the C-Genome project that they should cease with it and focus more on the hagoromo itself, seeing that he no longer had the C-Genome women and the only male C-Genome that held much promise was also gone, either recuperating from his injuries…or dead as a result of his injuries. But he couldn't let go of his hopes for the world through this project just yet; so long as the Ikari boy was still alive, there was still a chance to change the world that was now into a world that was perfect. A world where everyone was perfect, devoid of outcasts, devoid of crime, of indifference, where all were equal.

" _If any of you make an attempt to go after them again,"_ Shinji's voice echoed through his mind as he recalled the threat the boy made in defense of the women of celestial descent, _"and I will not be held responsible for filling these halls with your blood."_

 _But if he dies, the deal is negated,_ he thought, but deciding not to go down that route just yet. _I can't risk provoking him, though._

It was the fact that Shinji seemed more of a physical individual than the other C-Genomes physically weren't. The boy fought more with his bare hands than with any unusual power possessed by the other celestial descendants, such as pyrokinesis or telekinesis, but ended up getting similar, unexpected results that matched up to his survival odds. His father would be lucky if his lifespan hadn't been reduced by a few years with the intense beating he got.

Still, his superiors and their interests were now just on the hagoromo, not the C-Genomes…while his interests still revolved around them. If Kagami and his Cardinals were to change the world into one of perfection, they needed either Shinji or the Tennyo descendants, whichever were either convenient…or just in one piece among the living.

 _According to his file, Shinji and his family live near the beach by the coast of this Magatama Town,_ he thought, deciding to plan his next move.

-x-

As she carefully removed the last of the bloody bandages from Shinji's back, Yui sighed at the mending wounds present.

"I'm about to apply to the iodine, Shinji," she informed him.

"It's okay," he responded. "Just do what you need to do."

She opened the bottle of iodine and poured said substance onto his back, watching as exposed, damaged flesh turn from red and pink to white as the sterilization chemicals cleared potential infection.

"Aaurgh," the boy grunted, balding his fists as he laid his head on the kitchen table. "Ahh…"

"It seems you have something akin to a high-pain threshold, Shinji," she told him.

"Probably from piloting the Eva," he suggested, not particularly proud of that possibility.

"Or it's your celestial heritage," she countered, "or something else altogether different from what you've done recently."

"Maybe. Yeah, maybe."

Yui then picked up a roll of bandages…and gave it to Asuka to apply onto his back.

"You sure you know what you're doing back there?" He asked the redhead.

"Yeah," she answered him. "We took a field trip to the hospital at one point this year and learned how to perform medical aid with limited resources. The use of bandages was one of the methods learned."

"Cautionary disciplines, I take it?"

"That's right."

Four minutes later, Shinji walked out of the kitchen with his back re-bandaged and replacing his shirt.

"It felt weird, didn't it?" Asuka asked Yui.

"Yeah, it did," she answered, "but it felt right. That can't be wrong."

"No, it didn't feel wrong at all. It just felt…odd."

"In what way?"

"In that way."

Yui didn't need to press her to understand the crazy reason that was the answer; it felt weird to both women…because it felt like Shinji, the one they knew, lingered because of this Shinji that they cared for and changed their present. It might've been crazy, but for both of them, it just felt…soothing.

-x-

"…I was surprised that Yuuhi volunteered to escort Chidori back to the hotel when we were all going back there," said Aya as she, Toya, Aki and Q-Chan walked down the street to the hotel.

In front of them, Yuuhi was walking with Chidori at a steady pace. It was shocking to see her at the Ikari house, and surprising just to see her in town.

"So…you really knew Shinji and Asuka back then?" He asked her.

"Yeah," she answered. "I can't believe that you guys were here, though."

"I liked seeing you today."

"Likewise."

Unbeknownst to the two, they were holding hands. It wasn't unnoticed by the others…and it didn't seem odd or creepy at all.

To be continued…

A/N: Since it's a crossover and Shinji's deceased, alternate doppelgänger lived a different life, it's reasonable to assume that he knew Chidori in the past and it could've been possible for her and C-Asuka to have a falling out due to the redhead's red eyes. I'm not sure how much longer it'll be before this story reaches its conclusion, but I'm hoping for more involvement between the characters and more Gendo and Kagami bashing, but only one of them lives to see a future while the other loses everything except his life. Peace.


	26. Hello, Rei Ayanami

Creation began on 03-28-18

Creation ended on 05-16-18

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Hello, Rei Ayanami

Setting foot off the shuttle bus and onto the front path of her home, Rei Ayanami sighed as she carried her bag up the steps to the front door.

 _Home, sweet home,_ she thought as she took out her key and unlocked the lock. "Uh, hello? Mother? It's Rei. I'm home."

A woman with long, blue hair and eyes came from out a room with a broomstick and gasped.

"Rei," she spoke, dropping it and approaching the girl. "You're home."

Rei was immediately hugged by the older woman that was her mother, Mine Ayanami, and then locked in a grip that was more demanding than offering.

"I can't believe you left without telling me that you were going to some concert, Rei!" Mine yelled, shaking her by her shoulders. "I was worried sick when you didn't come home! I can understand why with Asuka, but with you, it's only a mystery because I don't talk with you girls. Why did you go?"

As much as Rei wanted to explain why she did what she did, she wasn't sure how to go about it.

"Asuka's always skipping school with Shinji every now and then, up until a year ago," she stated, trying to use her foster sister's actions as an excuse for her own. "Why couldn't I do the same for once? So I looked up GeSANG, found out where they were scheduled to perform their next concert…and packed up and left for Okinawa."

Mine let go of her and stepped back against the wall behind her.

"Did you have a good time?" She asked her daughter.

"I did. It felt exhilarating."

"Tell me something, though. It's about Asuka… Did you know about her and this Shinji Ikari?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Those two being a couple. Did you know about that?"

Rei sighed and expressed, "Yes. Not initially…but I had my suspicions that Asuka was the only girl that Shinji was closest to."

"And how long ago did you begin to have your suspicions?"

"Just a few months ago. They've probably been together longer than I suspected they were."

"Maybe. I only found out myself a few days ago…when I questioned Asuka about her absence."

"Have you heard from her today?"

"No, but she's likely with him."

"Yeah… She's rarely without him."

-x-

It was only the third day back, but it might as well as been irrelevant for Shinji as he reclined in the bathtub; Yui, probably due to wanting to make up for her failures as his deceased doppelganger's mother, stressed that he, regardless of his ability to stay out of dirty situations that affected his personal hygiene, needed to bathe.

" _The hot water will also help your injuries heal faster,"_ she had informed him, urging him to go to the bathroom and wash his grime off. _"Also, it'll do you some good to relax."_

And, as strange as he thought it was himself, he did feel some ease for the first time in a hot bath. There were no bad memories of his childhood, no thoughts about his father, not even of the Eva or the Angels. There was just…the silence…and the peace. And his back wounds, which had stung at first as he got in because of the hot water, were numb; you'd probably have to touch or press onto them to get a painful reaction from him.

 _It feels so nice,_ he thought as his head below his nose sunk into the water, spewing bubbles as he sighed. _So relaxing._

-x-

"…Thank you so much," Misato praised, hanging up the phone in front of Anzu and Asuka; she had called the hospital where her grandmother was recovering from her coma for the second time since she was healed from her brain damage and freed from Mikage International, and she just got the update that her grandmother had awakened from her coma three hours ago. "She's finally awakened."

"That's good news," Anzu congratulated her for her guardian's recovery.

"Yes, it is," the girl responded, grateful that her grandmother was awake. "It's among the good things that have happened since I met each of you."

"Mirukuru Samurai," said Asuka. "That's what you called Shinji. The Miracle Samurai."

-x-

Opening her red eyes to the new days, Rei awoke to see Major Katsuragi and the Second Child looking at the mirror.

"Rei, you're awake," went Misato to her. "How was your rest?"

"It was…unpleasant," the albino girl answered, but not for the reasons she probably thought of.

"Unpleasant?" Asuka questioned. "In what way?"

"I saw…Ikari-Kun…or someone just like him," she explained. "He was…distant, rigid, full of spite or contempt. He…wasn't the same person I know him to be. He was…"

"Tired? Worn out?" Misato asked her. "Dead inside?"

Rei nodded in the positive.

"I tried to approach him, but he yelled at me to keep away, that I was like poison to him," she revealed. "He said that everyone he knew, that he thought he knew, had become like poison to him. That our very existence, including his own, were what was wrong with everything he had to go through."

"That doesn't sound like that baka at all. At least not the one that got displaced," Asuka stated; if anything, it sounded like the Shinji she and Misato were beginning to suspect was the very original or was from an alternate universe that went bad and caused the boy to suffer.

"His eyes… His eyes were the coldest I had ever seen. Not like his father's. He was in pain. Physically, mentally, emotionally. He wanted it all to cease."

"You mean…he wanted to die?" Misato asked her.

"Yes," she revealed, "but something was wrong."

Asuka took the mirror from Misato and slid it over to Rei.

"What do you see?" She asked her, watching as she picked it up.

The mirror rippled and revealed to the albino girl Shinji, looking like had soaked in a long, hot bath because he was laying on a bed with his back bare and covered in mending claw marks. Beside him on his right was the red-eyed Second Child, laying on her back, looking up at the ceiling.

"Ikari-Kun," she answered, "with your doppelganger."

"Look at his back," Misato sighed, bothered by the marks.

"He looks like he just got out of the hot tub," Asuka stated, noticing that he looked damp.

" _It's hard to do nothing,"_ they heard Shinji say to her doppelganger.

" _Yeah, it is,"_ the red-eyed Asuka agreed with him, _"but you can't rush the healing process of every injury. Small injuries, depending on their conditions, take less time to mend. Large injuries, like yours, take longer to do the same. Also, there's rehab to consider sometimes. It could be a while before you're able to lay on your back or ever support any weight with it."_

" _That makes me seem like an invalid."_

" _No. It just means that for the time being, you're excused from doing any heavy lifting."_

" _Say, isn't today a school day?"_

" _Yeah, but I'm not going anywhere."_

Shinji turned to face her as though she were joking.

" _I've skipped school before, many times, and I'll do so again."_

" _That's gonna sink your GPA."_

" _I always make up for the classes that I miss."_

"How can she be so aloof with her education like this just to be around him?" Asuka wondered; if it had been her, she would've gone to school and work her arsch off until she had done better than the other students there.

"She wants to be with him as he recovers from his injuries," explained Rei.

"Also, Asuka, she's not exactly like you, just like my doppelganger isn't like me," Misato added.

"Yours is a teenager that got a blood transfusion from him that restored her to normal. It'd be weird if she was more like you."

" _I actually like your company, Asuka,"_ they all heard Shinji's voice in the mirror.

" _I like yours, too, Shinji. Just laying beside you is calming."_ Asuka's doppelganger responded.

Asuka looked at how her red-eyed counterpart slowly raise her right hand at Shinji's back injuries.

" _I feel tired, but talking to you actually keeps me awake,"_ Shinji revealed to the girl.

The doppelganger closed her hand, pulled it away, and simply smiled.

" _You can rest for a while,"_ she told him. _"I'll still be here."_

-x-

It wasn't hard for her to find his house; the Ikari estate was the only residential space nearest the water within the coastal town. This made finding the location easy for Rei when she decided to go see if Asuka was there.

"Here goes," she told herself and pressed the doorbell.

"Ikari residence," a female voice responded. "Who is this?"

"Ayanami, Rei," she identified herself.

The door opened, revealing Yui Ikari to the young girl.

"Oh," she uttered; because of the alternate Shinji's memories, Yui only really knew of the red-eyed Rei Ayanami from his universe, not this blue-eyed version that was Asuka's foster sister. "Rei Ayanami. You're Asuka's sister, right?"

"Yes. Yes, I am. May I come in?"

"Yes, of course. Please." Yui stepped aside and let the bluenette inside. "What brings you here, of all places to go to?"

"My sister…and Shinji Ikari. I had a feeling they'd be here; playing hooky is sort of their habit."

"Yeah. Heh… They've been doing that for quite some time since we got back."

Sometimes, it was difficult for Yui to keep up this lie. To lie about her son's status, to keep the truth about his death, his suicide, from ever being known, even though she grew up knowing that belief about the truth setting one free. She feared the possible repercussions of anyone not understanding the why or how to the phenomenon that was this Shinji ending up here.

"Miss Ikari?" Rei expressed. "Can you be honest with me if I asked you a personal question?"

"Huh?" Yui went, confused. "What do you mean?"

"I'm no fool when it comes to my sister's affections for Shinji. I won't even deny that I felt envious of what she has with him…and had with him. Still, just to be honest. I know for a fact that Shinji, at least the one we both knew, that is…died a year ago."

"What? That's crazy."

"Yes, it is…but I know it's true. Look me in the eye and tell me I'm not lying."

Yui did look her in the eye. It was the first time she met the girl, but this was the longest time she ever looked at her. She looked just like her red-eyed counterpart, down to the hair and skin tone (though she guessed her hue was a little pinkish, indicating a healthier tone, more sunlight and Vitamin C), but something about her (and it wasn't her hair and facial structures seeming exactly like hers) that seemed a bit different than the one she saw from universal distance. Maybe it was the blue eyes, or maybe her expressive cheeks and mouth, but something about her was mysterious.

"Rei?" They both turned towards the stairs and saw Asuka. "What are you doing here?"

"Seeing you and Shinji, of all people. Why else would I be here?" Rei explained to her. "Are you doing alright, by the way?"

"I've… I've had my ups and downs since I came back here to see everyone. It's been…a real adventure worth embracing."

"Coming from you, it sounds almost like you lived a life I can barely comprehend."

"I found out you went to see a concert, so you must've had fun yourself."

"It…really depends upon your definition of how I have fun."

"You got to see GeSANG! One of the people I met a few days ago, they know one of the members."

"It's hard to be excited about that when you didn't exactly go see them for fun."

"If you didn't see the concert for fun, what did you go see them for?"

"I think you know the reason why, sis."

"Ah…" They heard someone's voice go, sounding like they were yawning or pained by something. "That stinging sensation returned after I woke up from my nap."

Rei looked up at the stairs as Shinji came down, his left hand over his right shoulder.

"Oh," he went as he stopped on the last step, looking at the three women that were either alternates of people he knew from his past, people he was meeting for the first time or all of the above.

"It's nice to meet you for the first time," Rei expressed, sounding mildly elated to see him. "How are you today?"

Stepping onto the floor, Shinji answered, "I'm just trying to relax."

"Well, seeing as you're on the mend, that's a good thing."

"Yeah, about that… Just a bad slip and fall."

"Oh, we all know that that's a lie right there. Be honest with me. Oh, where are my manners? You only know me from another life…and likely from whatever my sister told you about me. I'm Rei Ayanami."

"Ayanami," he repeated, feeling like saying her first name would just be…awkward.

"Ever so formal. Just who might you be?"

"Shinji Ikari."

"Well…that was obvious."

Now Shinji was uncomfortable in her presence. Did she really know he wasn't the one she knew over a year ago? Or was she simply messing with him? He wish he knew for sure.

"Tell me," he heard her say, "how long have you been here…in this world that is different from yours?"

He looked at her and then at Asuka and Yui.

"The jig is up, Shinji," Asuka told him. "She knows."

-x-

Wei Fei Li, having only arrived in Magatama Town just a few hours ago, was on the rooftops of one of the buildings that overlooked the coastal beach, looking at the Ikari estate through a collapsible telescope, seeing his primary target along with a set of women, teens and adults, sitting outside in the garden area. So far, his orders were just to observe Shinji for the time being from a distance. If the boy was still alive, he would continue his observation, but if the boy seemed to succumb to his injuries caused by his father, he would return to the secondary research facility and execute this Gendo Ikari for having caused the death under the depraved indifference reasoning.

 _That man better be praying his son stays alive,_ he thought, never taking his eye off Shinji, who did look like he had gone a shade paler than usual.

-x-

"…So…how long have you known?" Yui asked Rei as they were sitting in the garden.

"Three months, at least," Rei explained, which caused Asuka to look at her like she had done something completely unfavorable. "Hey, I wasn't just going to come out and say it like I knew all the answers. First, I had dreams about it all, then daydreams…and then I started seeing things that were different from what usually happens around here."

"Different?" Shinji asked. "In what way?"

"You, for example," she explained. "Once every few nights, I would dream of you in an enclosed environment that caused you pain. Some sort of metal capsule filled with an orange fluid."

"The Entry Plug."

"You're always put into dangerous situations with creatures that don't look like anything that does exist…and there's this man that never smiles, never says anything to you to indicate any measure of caring about your welfare. He wore glasses and had the worst look of indifference one could possess."

"His father," said Anzu in realization. "It's hardly indifference that's expressed on his face. We saw the guy ourselves recently…and his expression was one of definite hate towards his own son."

"Is that why…his injuries are so bad?"

"Yeah," Asuka told her. "You should've seen him when we were there. He was a monster. A demon devoid of any heart."

"He was willing to kill anyone and everyone to get what he was after," Shinji explained.

"What was he after?" Rei wanted to know.

"The Ikari family's hagoromo," Anzu answered. "Except he's been informed that it's something he can never possess, no matter what he does."

"You have to be an Ikari by blood to get a chance to inherit the hagoromo of the family's celestial matriarch, Frenzia," Yui informed, "and Gendo, in at least one other life in a different universe, is only an Ikari by marriage. In this universe, he's just an old flame of mine back from when I made a series of poor choices in my past."

Rei only knew of Yui's past acts from an old newspaper article and old talk about how the woman was something of a vixen that had a lot of old boyfriends when she had no direction in life she was willing to go down, but she could guess that she lived to regret her decisions after her father died and only regretted her life further when her son died a year ago.

"That's rough, ma'am," she expressed.

-x-

"Hard to believe that your doppelganger knew about Shinji before any of them did," said Misato to Rei, setting the mirror down.

"Or that she's more talkative than you," added Asuka, stating that her blue-eyed double was clearly more vocal than the red-eyed albino.

"There is nothing wrong with being less than vocal," Rei defended.

Asuka then decided to pick up the mirror and saw her red-eyed doppelganger with Rei's, in the garden of the Ikari estate; they seemed to be at the pond, just having a conversation.

" _Tell me, just how much of my relationship with Shinji were you able to ascertain?"_ The red-eyed Asuka asked.

" _I knew enough about what you two were doing before he died last year,"_ the blue-eyed Rei explained. _"Each time I saw you with him, every time I saw him with you, every conversation you two ever engaged in_ _…_ _and the Mother's Day you didn't come home when we found out that Shinji wasn't at school that day."_

" _That was a trying day for Shinji. Well, uh, a trying night, as well. And nobody was at home for him, so I offered my company until the next morning."_

The mirror showed the blue-eyed Rei looking at Asuka's doppelganger like she had been trying to deny the extent of her relationship with the Shinji they both knew.

" _I didn't need to hear it from my mother, Asuka, but I knew enough from your absences to know you two were sleeping together,"_ she told the red-eyed redhead. _"Just tell me something, though. That day in the nurse's office, the same day you were suffering from cramps_ _…_ _You were hoping that he had gotten you pregnant, weren't you_ _…_ _after he died?"_

The redhead doppelganger looked at the koi fish pond and sighed.

" _What would you say if I said 'yes'?"_ She asked her.

" _I'd want to know what you'd do if you were, what your plans were and so on. Even if there's no blood between us and I don't say it often, you're still my sister_ _…_ _and I still care about you."_

" _Then_ _…_ _yes. Yes, I had been hoping that he had gotten me pregnant, then I'd have a part of him with me. I don't know what I would've done if that had happened. I know I'd let Yui and Anzu know if I was. They'd deserve to know. Tell me, what would you have done if it were you in my place?"_

" _Me? I'd probably do the same. However, I wasn't the one he was seeing."_

" _But be honest with me about something you once told me. You said that he and I go well together…but tell me… You weren't being entirely honest back then, were you?"_

" _I was being honest with you. You made him happy. You make his doppelgänger happy."_

" _But…you mean to say that…you didn't feel for him…the way I do?"_

The blue-eyed Rei looked at her like she'd been outed.

" _Very direct…in your own way,"_ she stated, and turned away.

" _We both started wondering if you knew, but my concern was whether or not you told your mother. He was ready to say that he forced me into the relationship if we were ever found out, even though that wasn't the truth. We were both culpable. Yet, you never gave any indication that you did, leaving me to wonder why."_

" _It wasn't my business to rat out you two to anyone that felt like you two were crossing a line that was too mature. Besides, everyone's doing a taboo or two all the time."_

" _Oh, really?"_

" _You read it in the comic books, learn about it through history, see it in the movies and so on. It's an endless circle of uncertain outcomes and romance between people that most think shouldn't be together when they feel they should, despite the opposition that often awaits them. A guy can't be with the woman she has a crush on because he's underage, a girl can't be with her ideal man because she's too young, a pair of teens can't walk around in public holding hands because they're siblings. Taboos that happen everywhere."_

" _And what was the taboo Shinji and I were doing called?"_

" _Typical teen behavior that you keep hidden from others because you don't want to get caught."_

" _But you never answered my question, though."_

" _Which was?"_

" _Did you have any feelings for Shinji?"_

 _Why is she trying to hide from her?_ The red-eyed Rei wondered as they saw her blue-eyed counterpart lean against a tree.

" _Even if I did have unrequited feelings for him,"_ her counterpart expressed, _"he was already with you. I wasn't going to put a wedge in your relationship because I didn't tell him how I felt. If he only had eyes for you, then there was no point to disclose my personal feelings. People with unrequited feelings tend to find new love interests as time moves on for them."_

" _But,"_ Asuka's counterpart responds, _"What happens if they don't find new crushes? What happens when they still pine for the first crush they feel they can't have because they're already in a committed relationship with someone else?"_

" _It's anyone's guess, but I won't demonstrate any resentment I might have on you or this Shinji just because I didn't make a move on the one we knew for years."_

Asuka then looked at Rei and wondered if this girl ever once demonstrated any pent-up anger over anyone before. She remembered the time when Shinji was trapped in the Twelfth Angel's shadow body and the First Child questioned her motives for piloting the Eva, but didn't expect even an alternate universal version of her to exhibit repressed jealousy over someone. Then, she returned her gaze to the mirror where their alternates were still engaged in their conversation.

" _Sometimes, I would just imagine slipping away from what everyone says about me being the good girl and yelling at you,"_ they heard Rei's doppelganger say to Asuka's. _"I would want to know what it was about you that attracted him, how he treated you when you were alone, why you were the one that could make him happy the way you did. I mean, some would think that men, or at least the ones they know of or personally, are crazy, sex-hungry and macho when it's not really true. Some are actually sensitive, selfless, troubled, isolated, lack confidence or some other thing altogether."_

" _Well said, Rei."_

" _I still meant what I said to you that day, though. That you and Shinji go well together."_

Even though it was only through the mirror, Misato had to wonder if the First Child's alternate was still pining for a chance with the Shinji she and the Second Child's alternate knew. Maybe even just to try and converse with him through their Shinji while he was still there.

The images of the mirror rippled once more before settling down to show Shinji, standing out in front of a large body of water; he was at the beach, but he looked as though he shouldn't have been.

"What is he doing out there?" Asuka questioned. "He should be resting."

Rei looked and saw that he wasn't by himself at the beach. There the elderly woman, Anzu Ikari, with him, who helped him to sit on a large rock near the small barrier that separated the beach from the sidewalk and street.

" _Thank you, Anzu,"_ they heard him say to her.

-x-

"When you said you probably had to get out of the house, I expected it to be the garden, though," Anzu told Shinji, "not the beach."

"But watching the waves is relaxing," he defended mildly.

"Shinji, I don't like the sound of your breathing. It sounds like you're having a difficult time just getting enough air in your lungs."

"It's nothing, really," he assured her. "I'm fine."

"At least let me check your back."

She lifted up his shirt and didn't find any bleeding from his wounds, but it didn't ease her worries about his breathing. If it wasn't fatigue, it was possibly a collapsing lung or respiratory failure.

"I asked Asuka if I could stay here," she heard him say as she pulled his shirt back down. "I wasn't even sure if it was right of me to ask… But…it is very peaceful here. It's a nice place to just…live."

"Yeah. This town is quite the quiet setting for people. You don't get much drama or something else that unsettles the peace. But why here when you could go anywhere else in the world?"

"Because of each of you. I like where I am…because of the people I trust and respect."

And then…Anzu just held onto him.

"I say this only because I care," she told him. "If you so much as slip into the afterlife, even for just a second, regardless of which way you're going, I will drag you back to this plane of existence…and then shackle you to this rock so that you can't slip away again."

A small threat, but one that came from a place of concern.

"I think Asuka and…Rei…would tie me down if I did," he uttered.

-x-

"…Sir?" Wei Fei Li called Kagami after heading over to another rooftop to monitor Shinji Ikari. "I can't be sure unless I get closer to the target, but it looks like the boy's health is deteriorating due to his injuries. Permission to ascertain for certain."

"Permission granted," responded Kagami on the other end. "Our project is compromised if he's dead."

-x-

"…Uh, did he just nod off?" Rei asked her sister as she, Yui and herself were applying more disinfect to Shinji's wounds in the kitchen, hearing him make a sound similar to light snoring.

"Man, he really needed more rest," Asuka sighed.

"Huh?" They heard Shinji say as he came to. "How long was I out?"

"Not even a minute, Shinji," Yui told him, wondering if she should've gave him a shot of adrenaline.

"For a moment, I thought I was crossing the forbidden line Anzu told me not to cross."

"Oh, really?" Asuka questions. "What'd she say would happen if you did?"

"I'd pretty much regret it if I did because she'd tie me to a rock."

"Sounds like something I'd do," Rei told them as they finished. "You should go to bed early."

As he replaced his shirt, Shinji looked at the three women and nodded that he'd do that.

"Good night, everyone," he told them as he walked out of the room.

Rei sat down in a chair sighed.

"I never thought those back wounds of his would be that deep," she told Asuka and Yui. "If they were any deeper, he'd probably lose some of his internal organs. And his father did this to him…simply because he couldn't have some family heirloom he had no claim to?"

"Say whatever it is you want to say, please," Yui responded.

"People like your dead boyfriend's alternate aren't even people. They're monsters. He was willing to commit the most unforgivable of extremes out of spite. And you guys let this Kagami Mikage take him when the building got trashed?"

"None of us wanted to deal with him after Shinji and Asuka knocked him out on the roof."

"Huh? Asuka here helped take down a full-grown man?"

"It had less to do with a future Shinji saw that was bad for me and more to do with wanting to see him live after seeing a future that was bad for him," Asuka stated on her involvement in the situation.

"Define 'bad future', please," Rei demanded.

-x-

Mine didn't worry about the lack of phone activity from either Rei or Asuka. She knew where they'd be. Knowing Asuka, she would be at the Ikaris; it was likely where Rei would be, too, since her daughter felt she had to check up on her herself.

"I'm starting to wonder what those two see in that boy," she uttered, curious about what it was about the Ikari boy that attracted her daughters to them; she suspected that Rei had feelings for Shinji, just like Asuka did. "I hope it isn't one of those relationships where the good girl likes the bad boy. Based on the way Asuka spoke of him, Shinji doesn't seem to be one of those bad boys affiliated with a dangerous crowd."

To be continued…

A/N: I'm not sure how this story will progress in the next chapter, but I'm hoping that it inches closer to a revelation between E-Shinji and C-Shinji.


End file.
